von Kenni

And D-10 (plus a bit of Sunday already) runs at 103,020 11:45am local time. Exactly what Oppy had same time. Interesting to see next few days.

Amazing! Even though SK pre-sales started two weeks before release for Dune Part 1 this D-15 figure is 11 times what Part 1 had the same time but get this: it's more than Dune Part 1 had D-1!

Here are estimates for Dune Part 1 and Part 2 production budgets (low, middle, high estimates) by researching public sources with some source links and references. We could pinpoint some numbers better and I welcome anyone to share sources for them. Knowing about the Hungarian production costs and overall budgeting for Part 1 is a huge help in estimating Part 2 costs. Any key insights on which parts of the production and even above-the-line costs can be attributed to Hungary will help to refine these numbers even more. Also shooting day numbers per location and what type of shots will help. VFX costs are a big question mark since they did a lot of practical effects, sets, and props together with VFX. There could be some shifts from that overall budget to the Hungarian Production budget but it wouldn't change the overall actuals. That said, the actual numbers aren't much off. Part 1 Low Ball Middle Ground High Ball Above the line $24,000,000 $21,000,000 $28,000,000 $37,000,000 Story Rights [1] $2,000,000 $1,000,000 $2,000,000 $3,000,000 Script & Screenplay [2] $1,500,000 $1,000,000 $2,000,000 $3,000,000 Producers [3] $5,000,000 $4,000,000 $5,000,000 $8,000,000 Director [4] $1,500,000 $1,000,000 $2,000,000 $3,000,000 Main Cast [5] $10,000,000 $12,000,000 $14,000,000 $15,000,000 Other [6] $4,000,000 $2,000,000 $3,000,000 $5,000,000 Below the line $141,000,000 $146,000,000 $165,000,000 $184,000,000 Hungarian Production Costs [7] $60,000,000 $60,000,000 $65,000,000 $70,000,000 Hungarian VFX Costs [8] $20,000,000 $40,000,000 $35,000,000 $30,000,000 Hungary Indirect VFX Costs [9] $20,000,000 $25,000,000 $25,000,000 $25,000,000 Additional VFX [10] $16,000,000 $0 $10,000,000 $20,000,000 Score [11] $2,000,000 $2,000,000 $3,000,000 $4,000,000 Jordan/UAE Filming [12] $15,000,000 $15,000,000 $20,000,000 $25,000,000 Other [13] $8,000,000 $4,000,000 $7,000,000 $10,000,000 Total $165,000,000 $167,000,000 $193,000,000 $221,000,000 Hungarian Rebate 30% [14] $30,000,000 $37,500,000 $37,500,000 $37,500,000 Jordan/UAE Rebate ~20% [15] $3,000,000 $3,000,000 $4,000,000 $5,000,000 Actuals $132,000,000 $126,500,000 $151,500,000 $178,500,000 Total VFX Costs [16] $56,000,000 $65,000,000 $70,000,000 $75,000,000 VFX Shots [17] 1,700 2000 2100 2300 Price per Shot [18] $32,941 $32,500 $33,333 $32,609 Some of the budgeting fundamentals and information about the Hungary production can be found in previous posts on this forum: Original post 1/2 Original post 2/2 Some resources and references are here to help you but you can find more by googling. Some initial references here, here, and here [1] 2-3% of the production budget with a cap LOTR original filming rights Rights after successful adaptations Crazy numbers It can have an unknown royalty factor, i.e. X% out of BO. [2] 2-3% of the production budget for original scripts This is an adaptation and Denis Villeneuve was the main screenwriter who takes very reasonable fees, especially for his life’s dream project. [3] 2-5% of the production budget with a cap Hypothetical blockbuster budget Ent Law Firm View [4] One of many mediocre sources points to around $1.5m (before residues) He will most likely take a bigger residue and smaller salary if it helps the film being made. [5] Modest salaries and most likely residue-heavy Part 1 salaries. With Residues, you can likely double the final compensation. Depending on the residue structure after Part 2 makes a lot of money in the box office you can double, triple, or multiply even more some of the cast compensation. [6] A whole bunch of other costs that I didn’t separate above [7] Original post on this 1/2 Original post on this 2/2 [8] Origo studios VFX capabilities in Hungary Origo studios website VFX Supervisor Paul Lambert took his team to Budapest early in pre-production Insights for making the VFX for Dune from Paul Lambert & co. More insights The core VFX team worked in Hungary and live-action VFX shooting happened mostly there. [9] These VFX costs are outside Hungary but are eligible for the rebate. [10] VFX costs outside Hungary that are not eligible for the rebate. [11] $1-2m per movie Hans Zimmer has waited half a century to make the score for Dune. Most likely residue-heavy. [12] Part 1 shooting 11 days in Jordan Paul // The shoot was a total of 115 days. We shot in Hungary, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Norway & California. Expecting at least 50% more for Part 2 and day rates of shooting being $0.5-1m for Part 2 in Jordan/UAE.. [13] A whole bunch of other costs such as insurance, etc. that are not mentioned above [14] Hungarian rebate rules Exact Hungarian production numbers for Part 1 and Part 2 and the 30% rebates Some context and remark to 30% and 37.5% rebates [15] Special consideration will be given to high impact projects (Jordan) Abu Dhabi incentives [16] The Creator had great VFX and the whole production budget was $80m!? Overall hard to define a specific VFX budget since so many are actual sets and props built as a base for VFX. [17] DNEG did 1,200 out of the 1,700 VFX shots of Dune Part 1 VFX shot comparisons [18] Cost structure Open questions How many of the creatives, production people, and cast moved to Hungary for the production in a way that their salaries were paid in Hungary? I.e. their costs are included in the Hungarian production budget.

On the international thread there was an estimate of $4m opening weekend in Mexico which is great considering Part 1 made just over $5m in total. With Part 1 multipliers the total for Part 2 would be $10m but we could expect more. But yeah, haven't seen overall OS breakdowns yet. If real work won't bother me too much, I'll make some summaries next weekend.

Thanks for sharing this thoughtful analysis. I hope that we have more of this kind of breakdowns here in the forum from others too. I'm those whose favorite SW movies is ESB but I'll be looking for this aspect of it next time when I watch it.

As much as it is about widening audience appeal which I'm sure it does to some extent at least, I think there's a good chance based on initial reactions that the amount of people that go see it twice, three times, four times, etc. in IMAX can explode compared to Part 1 and give it stellar legs. Whatever we have as the audience grading system that 5% from 90% to 95% will make a huge difference BO wise. Is there a resource breaking down this type of effects to BO? I.e. effects of those who go see a movie multiple times to the overall BO especially for films that have stellar reviews and blockbuster results?

Yeah, I'm intentionally downplaying and setting myself for overexpectations. Keysersoze is more like the real expectations but secretly I'm hoping that the storm that is forming will be a perfect storm and we would be talking about B ...and I'm not talking about cinemascore here. Now I said too much. I don't want to jinx it.

There's some serious expectations management that I need to do before going to see this and the same for box office expectations. I'll stick to my $500m+ WW and I smile, $550m+ and I'm excited, and $600m+ would just be gravy. Looks like the gravy train might be heading home, a big one, and I might very well be listening that Sardaukar soundtrack on repeat.

Can we anecdotally make any deductions that this might work better for female demos than Part 1? I.e. wider appeal for demos. So many of the amazing reactions here are from women.

Did someone call for Erlich?

Feb 29th 6pm... Seeing the Part 1 in IMAX for the first time last Monday was an amazing experience and the preview with the trailer bits left me shaking and ready for this. Let's go!

I think you both have a point but the disagreement is just to which length the critics negative bias still exists and how much it matters in the end. Based on the insights on Part 2 so far it seems to have a chance to be more accessible for wider audiences than Part 1 but we'll see how much. I think we overanalyze the original comparison here that was probably an enthusiastic take and dream of what this could be. Sure, the odds might be very much against but can we at least hope for it? Dune Part 2 and then Messiah have a chance to hit certain notes in our zeitgeist which I'm not so fan of. While the original Star Wars was the epitome of individualistic transcendentalism wrapped in a specatular hero's journey (yeah, now I'm trying to sound smarter than I am) and LOTR a timeless archetypal story of friendship, heroism, and fight against evil, Dune ultimately is a terrible antihero story filled with cynism against heros, rulers, religion, and government. On paper at least, this could hit a cord with our zeitgeist. Though there is a chance that it serves two audiences at the same time badly: those who crave for heroic acts and fights between good and evil (Part 2) and those who don't believe in heroes but see everything tainted, cynically, even nihilistic (Messiah). It definitely will be interesting to see how these movies will gather new audience before Messiah and after. It might grow to a significance of SW and LOTR even if the initial audience numbers don't show it. ...and now I overanalyzed the hell out of this instead of just having fun with it.

$14m from China would stink. I hope Legendary - Wanda Group connection can this time do better job than the last time...and hopefully Part 2 is more engaging for the local audience there.

I hope China pulls a considerably bigger audience this time and I feel that the action-packed Part 2 might just do it. How much more? That remains to be seen but even just $60m would be great for the Legendary there and that would give all the more breathing room for Messiah production. I wonder if the Part 2 deal with WB and Legendary is the same as with Part 1 or different. Wasn't China in harsh lockdown policies during Part 1? Maybe Part 2 has a shot for even $100m there? ...I wonder which movies have done that since Part 1 over there. Answering myself ... Chinese Box Office 2023 Shot yeah, but needs to hit a homerun. $60-80m should definitely be in play. Don't know what the competition would be. During Part 1 NTTD hit week after the theaters.

I also missed those breakdowns from columns AG to AN which show that Part 2 primary production costs happened when Forint was its cheapest. Without knowing exactly when the currency exchanges happened and bills were paid it looks safe to say that the Hungarian spending was around $125m if not even less and not $130m or more. Part 1 is really scattered in breakdown but with a glance looks like the higher exchange rates are accurate there too. If someone wants to calculate exacts, go ahead The Hungary rebate info is great again. I.e. Legendary is very much incentivized to do as much as possible locally in Hungary and then utilize productions and shooting outside up to that 25 % mark ...which I guess practically is 25/125 = 20%. I.e. if they want to use the rebate fully only 20% of production costs should be outside like from filming in Italy or Wadi Rumi. I don't think that Part 1 and 2 Hungarian budgets are therefore exactly comparable but we don't know exactly which way they lean. Some hints might be to find out how many days they shot in each location and compare those numbers between Part 1 and 2. But that doesn't tell about possibly concentrating post-production more on Hungary or some other costs that they couldn't do with Part 1 there but now can. But at least we should know the ballparks with these numbers. The actual budget after rebates probably is around $150m to $170m.

I elaborated on the footage in question in my post just now but that's not the main point of saving of costs. Maybe a few million at most if it is all used. The bigger savings were related to the other points that I made and even if they had a lot of new sets and set making they did a lot of sets, VFX libraries, costumes, art design, etc. pre-production and production work that they can reuse in Part 2. That said, they can still spend a lot more and more to do more grandiose stuff but the question here was if it is possible to do Part 2 even with a lower budget than Part 1. With regard to my points, I'd say yes, even if unlikely. It's a different question what the actual numbers are until we know them for sure. Going through the Hungarian budget numbers in detail in my previous post, it seems that they spend more for Part 2 and we probably know now where the $122m number comes from. It's not the whole budget but the estimated Hungarian budget based on a certain currency exchange rate.

Could you elaborate on that more? How does that affect the deals made for both Part 1 and Part 2? Or any of my other points? It's not as if they burn the sets and preproduction work in between and start from scratch. Storing stuff isn't free either but as PlatnumRoyce digged the shooting dates the difference between the productions was much less than 3 years. Thanks again for the awesome sources. I went through them and found some interesting numbers. I'm not sure where you got the $64m number but these are what I found: Part 1 29.6B Forints actual production costs (incl. additional photography) which a higher exchange rate at the time translates to about $100m with 30% of it paid back as incentives. That earlier article stated the Hungarian production costs at $87m which I'm pretty sure they got by using the exchange rate at the time of writing that article (around 0.0035 USD/Ft) and using the planned budget of 25 Forints. Part 2 49.5B Forints actual production costs with a lower exchange rate during primary photography and throughout the production than Part 1 will translate into $125-130m with 30% of it paid back as incentives. Again, the $122m number is most likely the planned Hungarian production budget of 46.1B Forints used with an exchange rate of 0.00265 USD/Ft at the time (maybe someone can dig up the original date of reporting the $122m but if it hits somewhere around June, July, August or November, December in 2022, that was the time when the exchange rate was around that 0.00265). A couple of additional Notes 1. We don't know for sure yet if the Hungarian production budget works like with the UK incentive, i.e. that only a fraction like 10% needs to be actual Hungarian services and the rest can be just billed through even if the actual production happens in Wadi Rumi, Jordan. However, the sizes of these budgets suggest that it works like that and it seems that these budgets are most likely most or all of the below-the-line production budgets for these films. 2. If these budgets include the same type of costs (e.g. production costs for shooting outside Hungary), we can likely conclude that Part 2 costs more than Part 1. It doesn't necessarily mean it costs $25-30m more. It can be less or even more depending on the rest of the costs. If Part 2 Hungarian budget includes the type of costs that Part 1 for some reason didn't include (i.e. using more local services or finding ways to incorporate outside costs to it that they couldn't add during Part 1), then Part 2 didn't necessarily cost any more than Part 1. 3. A quick googling revealed that Part 1 was possibly $30m cheaper than originally reported (Reddit of all sources...would like to have other sources for this). Dune Part 1 production got that $30m repay so that might very well be that difference. I.e. they announced the $165m budget without already saying that they will have that repayment. Same as with many current Disney and Marvel films shot in UK. This is for marketing purposes to be seen as a large-scale production (which has a lot lost its meaning since the time of Titanic). 4. If the other costs are the same as Part 1 ($165-$100m=$65m) then Part 2 will have a budget of $190-195m before repayment and around $155m after it. 5. About using Part 1 filming for Part 2. They shot about 15min scenes that happened right after Part 1 ended but due to studio pressure, or so it is reported, Villeneuve needed to shorten the Part 1 runtime and cut those scenes out. Now we can't be sure if all of that is going to be used but knowing what the scenes are at least some or most of it needs to be used for Part 2. Of course, he could have reshot them.

Because: Above-the-line costs like director, producers, screenwriters & writers (primarily Villeneuve), and main cast were primarily done as a two-movie deal for Parts 1 and 2. Even with new cast members such as Austin Butler and Christopher Walken, they got great deals because they were already craving to be in Part 2 after seeing Part 1. Additionally if Legendary needed to renegotiate the deals a bit to make the Part 2 happen these costs would be even more residual based (success fee) as they initially were. But I think the contracts were initially already heavily residual based and there wasn't any renegotiating. Just finding the shooting days for everyone's schedules. These above-the-line direct costs are most likely tens of millions of dollars less for Dune Part 2 than if this would be e.g. an MCU sequel. Maybe even $50m lower with this ensemble cast. Even though Part 2 has new locations, sets, ships, costumes, etc. most of the pre-production was already done, and many of the sets, costumes, etc. are to be reused, and the same goes for those VFX libraries. I.e. Arrakis was already created during Part 1. All this significantly lowers the Part 2 costs likely with tens of millions of dollars. Some of the Part 2 footage was already shot during Part 1 (at least 15 min). Again, it lowers the overall costs with millions of dollars. Now, is the $122m number possible? Maybe, but at least $165m for sure. If they would do it in a bloated, reshoot filled production like MCU has done movies for years, then we would be talking $250m or north from that but here, no. Thanks for the tip on the Hungarian source. It looks like a similar incentive structure to the UK. In Hungary, you get now even a 30% pack through rebates. In the UK just 10% needs to be costs related directly to local services and e.g. Indy 5's or Little Mermaid's filming in Italy was counted for the rebate. If Hungarian support is similar then Wadi Rumi and Italian filming are counted for it too. Disney budgets are "announced" without the rebates but I guess there is a small chance that the $122m figure could be after the rebate which would make the actual costs before the rebate $174m. I only found this source so far for Dune Part 1: https://index.hu/gazdasag/2019/06/17/a_dunee_lehet_minden_idok_legnagyobb_magyar_filmtamogatasa/

Missed the IMAX during the original release and as I hoped get to see it this Monday before Part 2 opens. First the LOTR by Peter Jackson and now Dune by Villeneuve. Both of my favorite books done by people who love and respect the source material. Sweet.

Is there any solid info on the budget? Quick googling gives that $122m which makes sense a bit to be smaller than the Part One $165m reflecting the overall financial success of Part One, I.e. from studio perspective and that legendary didn't get such an upside in China as they expected. Also, the VFX libraries and some of the props and sets are already established plus the actors aren't demanding so much for this as there likely market value. The deal isn't as good as Tom Cruise asking $30m for Iron Man 1 and RDJ doing it for $2.5m but still. And as said here, Villeneuve has been effective with his budgets (the last Thor director being at the other end of the spectrum). All that said, $122m sounds still low. With $150m maybe and $165m for sure. Any bona-fide sources for this?

Loving the conversation here if Dune Part 2 is going to make $275m DOM and $700m WW. $500m WW would make me already smile and feeling confident to see Dune Messiah. $600m and over would be gravy and $700m or more just dreams from the deep. With that I'll listen Sardaukar 🎶 on repeat.

Seven is Fincher's best movie and a level higher than any other movie he has done for me. Haven't seen Killer. Zodiac okay. Fight Club probably second for me. After Seven I had high hopes for Fincher but for me he hasn't gotten better like Denis Villeneuve by every movie that he makes.

$5 tickets yesterday to see it 42 male Yeap, sounds about right.

I don't know why I haven't ever seen this. I'm a fan of Spader and looks like on par with the Secretary movie with Maggie Gyllenhaal which was a treat too.