A Haunting in Venice | September 15, 2023 | Branagh's moustache is back at it again!

[Pinacolada]

Curious what the budget is for this. Death on the Nile was inexplicably expensive 

 

Orient Express cost $55. This shouldn't be more than that. I'm sure Disney greenlit this on the condition that Branagh bring down that budget. Hopefully like a $40m budget or so? A performance like Death on the Nile and that'll be a hit

[dobrevv]

4 hours ago, Pinacolada said:

Curious what the budget is for this. Death on the Nile was inexplicably expensive 

 

Orient Express cost $55. This shouldn't be more than that. I'm sure Disney greenlit this on the condition that Branagh bring down that budget. Hopefully like a $40m budget or so? A performance like Death on the Nile and that'll be a hit

its disney,their budgets are way too big

[Chrysaor]

I've been searching like crazy to find out what the budget for this one is in order to get some idea of how successfully it'll need to be to get a fourth film made. No luck yet, but I did find a couple of fascinating articles revealing salaries for earlier Christie films. I'd never even heard of the below site before, but the $5MM figure that they report for Gal Gadot is widely reported elsewhere, so it appears their numbers may be legit (and there's certainly plenty of stories of stars taking role for surprisingly small paychecks).

 

https://www.showbizgalore.com/death-on-the-nile-starcast-and-their-salary/

 

All said, Death of the Nile's cast cost less than $15 million total. I've found a handful of articles pointing to an expensive combination of  hybrid practical / (cheap looking but apparently actually expensive) CGI paired with location shooting as eating up most of the budget (i.e. they spent a lot of money to recreate Egypt and then ultimately decided to film some scenes on location there anyway). One particularly expensive endeavor: recreating a life size replica of a period accurate luxury steamer.

 

I also found that Depp was paid $10MM for his relatively small role as Ratchett:

https://www.unilad.com/film-and-tv/johnny-depps-agent-breaks-down-actors-salaries-controversy-20220502

 

And this fun read about the salaries of the stars of the 1974 adaption of Murder on the Orient Express.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/nov/13/how-we-made-the-original-murder-on-the-orient-express

 

Anyway, back to the original topic of the upcoming film's budget: I imagine the ridiculous costs of the locations in the first two films are a big reason we're getting a less ambitious (albeit still gorgeous) setting this time (and also why they chose to not set it on a vehicle... sorry Death in the Clouds enthusiasts). Someone mentioned a $40 million estimate earlier, and honestly I think that's a decent guess, though I wouldn't be surprised if it was even less. I mean, if they can make The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel  for $10MM and Downton Abbey for $13MM (and BEMH had arguably starrier overall cast than this) than figure on $1-2MM (or quite possibly significantly less based on those DotN figures) for your biggest stars like Yeoh, Fey, and Dorman and that could still leave this under $20MM. Honestly it sounds like DotN could've been made for well under $40MM if it wasn't for the titanically expensive locations.

 

So maybe $40MM on the high end and $20MM on the low?

 

If that's the case, I imagine anything over $100 WW would be a pretty safe win (especially since it sounds like DotN's streaming success factored heavily into this one getting the green light).

Edited September 11, 2023 by Chrysaor
Formatting

[Dominic Draper]

Yeah it's surprising death on the nile was so expensive when the cast was worse, and it didn't look nearly as nice as orient express visually.

[Chrysaor]

Yeah, I feel like, relative to its budget, Branagh was really smart with the cast in MotOE, and really unwise with the cast in DotN (not that he didn't get talented performers, just that with the arguable exception of Gal Gadot, none of them were Box Office draws whatsoever). He also made the mistake of having almost exclusively American/British casts in the first two films, and I think after the sharp drops that DotN saw, not just in the U.S. but abroad, he was very smart to include both a French and Italian star as well this time around. In terms of money expended vs. money generated, I imagine those two will probably be cash well spent. Additionally, hopefully Yeoh (who to my knowledge has never been a BO draw in China, but had a major "moment" there following her Oscar win) will help boost its Box Office in China, although it probably wouldn't have hurt to have included a German or Japanese star as well.

 

 

                    MotOE     DotN

China         $35            $11
Japan        $14            $5
S.Korea     $6              $2
France       $13            $7
Italy            $18            $6
Germany   $16            $5
Spain          $11            $4
Russia        $16            $7
Nether        $6              $2
Australia    $13            $5
Mexico       $3              $1
Brazil          $6              $1

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Chrysaor

[ThomasNicole]

80% After 59 reviews (6.7 average) 

 

yeah pretty solid reception, shouldn’t change drastically from now on. 
 

hopefully the good reviews can help the movie to succeed 

[Jonwo]

I assume that Branagh has been given more liberties with A Haunting in Venice given it's based on a Christie novel that wasn't exactly a classic.

 

If Haunting is successful, I could see 20th green lighting another. Evil Under the Sun set say in Spain or Greece would be good.

[Chrysaor]

Yeah, it shouldn't be hard to get that "Certified Fresh" label now, which will hopefully help give it some small boost.

 

The cast budget for Death on the Nile was $11.4 MIllion and on this one it was only $4.32 (Branagh got $2.5 million, same as on the previous film, and somehow Kyle Allen got $600k, but everyone else got $400k or less -- I wonder if the studio had originally planned on Rosaline being a theatrical release and figured that'd help put Allen on the map?). I talked to a couple of acquaintances who've been involved in casting smaller studio films and they said that with that sized cast budget that the overall budget would most likely be in the $20-25 Million range (although with how much DotN spent outside of its cast, who really knows).

 

While this film's cast obviously isn't as starry as Murder on the Orient Express, I feel like it's pretty impressive for the budget, and I guess that's one of the nice things about having Branagh at the helm -- he's a director that actors seem to legitimately be excited to work with. He's also been responsible for quite a few fairly big actors' big breaks early on in their careers (Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston are the obvious ones, but also Lilly James, David Oyelowo, and even Kate Beckinsale) so I could see some of them (and maybe some of the Potter actors since they seemed to have gotten along really well together on set) appearing and taking smaller than typical paychecks in order to have an opportunity to work with him again and keep the franchise going.

 

Branagh obviously has a great working relationship with Disney, five out of his past seven films have been for Disney/Fox. He's obviously passionate about this franchise, and if he really can turn them out on such a responsible budget then I could see the studio continuing to let him make them, as long as they don't lose money, simply to keep him in-house. In fact, I did find an interview with James Pritchard (Christie's great-grandson, who serves as an Executive Producer on the Branagh films) and, while I wish there was more context, he makes it sounds like as long as this one doesn't flop they're basically good to go for a fourth, it's just a matter of how soon Kenneth Branagh and Michael Green want to begin work on the story.

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Chrysaor

[ZeroHour]

Based on the trailers, it seems like this movie primarily takes place in a single location that doesn't require a lot of on location or CGI exterior shots like a film set on a train or a luxury boat do. I'm guessing that was an intentional decision made to keep costs down in comparison to the last two.

[TwoMisfits]

On 9/10/2023 at 8:28 PM, Pinacolada said:

Curious what the budget is for this. Death on the Nile was inexplicably expensive 

 

Orient Express cost $55. This shouldn't be more than that. I'm sure Disney greenlit this on the condition that Branagh bring down that budget. Hopefully like a $40m budget or so? A performance like Death on the Nile and that'll be a hit

 

Seeing a lot of $70M rough guesses online, but nothing official.

[Pinacolada]

2 hours ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

Seeing a lot of $70M rough guesses online, but nothing official.

Christ

[ddddeeee]

Variety says the budget is $60M

 

Box Office: 'A Haunting in Venice' Targets $15 Million Debut - Variety

[PlatnumRoyce]

On 9/11/2023 at 2:04 AM, Chrysaor said:

 

https://www.showbizgalore.com/death-on-the-nile-starcast-and-their-salary/

Quote

Note : All facts and news publish on this website is collected from internet. Please Verify Yourself after reading articles from this site. [about us page]

If they're explicitly claiming to just be a third party aggregator, I don't see this as worth citing especially as only evidence in their favor is more prominently aggregated news about Gadot's salary. (this is where you're getting the 4.3M cast salary from, right?)

Edited September 13, 2023 by PlatnumRoyce

[Mojoguy]

1 hour ago, ddddeeee said:

Variety says the budget is $60M

 

Box Office: 'A Haunting in Venice' Targets $15 Million Debut - Variety

Much cheaper than Nile's stupidly expensive $90m budget. That movie had the bad luck of being released on the tail end of covid in early 2022.

[Chrysaor]

1 hour ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

If they're explicitly claiming to just be a third party aggregator, I don't see this as worth citing especially as only evidence in their favor is more prominently aggregated news about Gadot's salary. (this is where you're getting the 4.3M cast salary from, right?)

Yeah, that's one of the sites I used (the other two are here and here) which all gave similar (though not identical) figures for the salaries. I primarily relied on Showbizgalore though, since they seem to somewhat specialize in salary info, and the numbers that they list for several other films match those reported at more reputable sites. Anyway, since the trades have confirmed that the budget was $60 Million, I suppose how much of that was spent on the cast is pretty immaterial (though still fun to speculate on).

 

Presuming that this is a similar sized hit on Hulu to Death on the Nile, what are we feeling like the bar for success is? Also, are we feeling that Deadline is being "typical Deadline" by downplaying it's OW  (they claim $12MM) so that it can cry success when it outstrips that, or do we feel like this really is heading for low-to-mid-teens?

Edited September 13, 2023 by Chrysaor

[SpiderByte]

The cast isn't as star studded as the last two so a softer opening isn't the end of the world. Performing like Nile isn't as bad with a smaller budget.

[Bob Train]

DOTN made $120m during end of COVID, let's see if this can do $150m.

[TerwillikerInst]

On 9/11/2023 at 2:45 AM, Dominic Draper said:

Yeah it's surprising death on the nile was so expensive when the cast was worse, and it didn't look nearly as nice as orient express visually.

IIRC, the original plan was to shoot it partially on location in Morrocco (Egypt being a no-go since the last DotN movie actively damaged some of the heritage sites it filmed at).

 

But when Disney kept forcing Branagh to do multiple extensive last-minute reshoots on Artemis Fowl, filming kept having to be pushed back, and they lost the locations.

 

That's why it cost like $30 million more than Orient; despite having fewer big-name actors, they lost a lot of their original casting and location choices and had to pay extra for replacement actors and sets.

 

Edited September 14, 2023 by TerwillikerInst

[Chrysaor]

1 hour ago, TerwillikerInst said:

IIRC, the original plan was to shoot it partially on location in Morrocco (Egypt being a no-go since the last DotN movie actively damaged some of the heritage sites it filmed at).

 

But when Disney kept forcing Branagh to do multiple extensive last-minute reshoots on Artemis Fowl, filming kept having to be pushed back, and they lost the locations.

 

That's why it cost like $30 million more than Orient; despite having fewer big-name actors, they lost a lot of their original casting and location choices and had to pay extra for replacement actors and sets.

 

That is super fascinating, do you remember by chance where you heard that?

[Chrysaor]

Only $1.2 MM in previews, just head of Death of the Nile's $1.1. If this were to have an identical Pre/OW multiplier, that'd result in a $13.96 OW. Of course, the question is since the marketing leaned so hard into the horror aspects, is this going to significantly change the age demos from the previous film? Since older audiences were still yet to return to theaters en masse during DotN's run, there's an off chance that this could have an even better multiplier, but only if the older demo wasn't scared off by the trailers. Ticket to Paradise, for example, also had $1.1 MM in previews, but that put it at a $16.5 MM OW. I'm not holding my breath for those kinds of results here, but they sure would be nice.