Independence Day: Resurgence cost 200 million to make- Are they out of their minds?

[Soundwave]

Lawlight said:

Soundwave said:

After Earth is not associated with Will Smith like ID4 is. Indepedence Day basically made Will Smith the biggest movie star on the planet for a while, quite frankly he was a good fit for that role too, heroic, yet funny and cool. 

It's not crazy to say ID4-2 would make more money with Will Smith than without him. It's a film people associate with him. 

So yeah sure, I'd ID4-2 might make say $500 million worldwide as is, but with Will Smith maybe that number goes up to $600 million instead, and then you have a corresponding bump in home video revenue too.

It sounds like the real bottom line here is that Will Smith simply did not want to do the sequels, he wanted to do Suicide Squad instead. Most likely the studio would've pushed out the $$$ to have him back. 

It's more likely that the studio would have lost money with him on board unless he got paid way less than his asking price. The movie is going to bomb anyway, with a budget of $165M. No need to bomb with a budger of $215M.

And in case you missed it, the star power effect is gone now. Franchises and brands are what brings people in.

It would've been an extra $25 million for Will Smith for this film. Which means the film would've had to make an extra $45-$50 in total box office to justify having him. 

To me I would done it as a movie studio, I mean this is not a small movie, if you're already spending $200 mill, you might as well go all in. Besides I think a lot of these marketing budgets are over-bloated. Shave $10 mill off the marketing and/or effects, you don't need 858404949848398483 layers of CGI.