2015 has been a record box office year, with five movies cracking the once-coveted $1 billion barrier (and a late strong contender that is all but guaranteed to do it). Even with some wild predictions it's hard to imagine next year will come close to this record-breaking level, although one thing that will keep climbing is budgets. Regardless of dollar value or potential profits, over the past few decades the actual sums sunk into the biggest movies produced by Hollywood has ballooned to the size of the GDP of several first world countries (not an exaggeration, look it up). It's got to the point where Cleopatra, one of the most notoriously expensive movies ever made, even when adjusted for inflation, barely cracks the top twenty for the highest-budgeted films. The current record holder is Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides at almost $400 million (an eye-watering amount for a movie exactly no one enjoyed), but that's set to be smashed in 2016. Possibly twice. First is Batman V Superman, released in 2016 itself, which will reportedly cost upwards of $420 million, a believable amount given its somewhat protracted production. That's a record that won't be held for long, however, as at the end of the year production begins on Avengers: Infinity War, with a projected budget of $1 billion for the two-parter. It's crazy as it is, but when you consider the general rule that a movie needs to make more than twice its budget to break even (due to advertising costs and the like), these franchises are really pushing their limits.
