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Movies & Series 21 April 2022, 13:26

author: Jan Tracz

The Most Expensive Scenes in Cinema History

Today, we present nine movie scenes that filmmakers and studios paid through the nose for. Which movies are they from? What is their story? See for yourself!

Table of Contents

Ben-Hur – the chariot race

  1. Movie budget: $15.2 million
  2. Scene budget: $4 million
  3. Where to watch: Chili, Rakuten

The last entry is a classic movie from the Hollywood period when producers focused on exactly this type of epic productions. We can say that in those days, hardly any film enjoyed such lush momentum and fast action. The 1959 Ben-Hur, directed by William Wyler, was a remake of the equally successful 1925 silent film of the same title. What set it apart from its predecessor was the pace – you had to be crazy to make a film like this in the late 1950s!

The chariot race stage cost as much as $4 million, which in today's money could total some $34 million (which makes this scene is one of the most expensive sequences in the entire ranking; one minute cost about 3.7 million dollars!).The race itself lasts nine minutes in the film, but it took five years of planning to set it all up.

Plus over 200 miles of tracks, 300 movie sets (148 acres), and over a thousand extras. All these numbers are impressive, but it's no wonder. Because when we watch the race scene, we realize that shooting it involved many sacrifices.

Jan Tracz

Jan Tracz

Graduated Film Studies (BA and MA) at King's College London, UK. Currently, he writes for Collider, WhyNow, The Upcoming, Ayo News, Interia Film, Przegląd, Film.org.pl, and Gamepressure.com. He has had publications in FIPRESCI, Eye For Film, British Thoughts Magazine, KINO, Magazyn PANI, WP Film, NOIZZ, Papaya Rocks, Tygodnik Solidarnosc, and Filmawka. He has also collaborated with Rock Radio and Movies Room. Conducted interviews with Alejandro González Ińárritu, Lasse Hallström, Michel Franco, Matthew Lewis, and David Thomson. His published works include an essay in the anthology "Nikt Nikomu Nie Tlumaczy: Swiat wedlug Kiepskich w kulturze" (Brak Przypisu Publishing, 2023). Laureate of the Leopold Unger Scholarship in 2023. Member of the Young FIPRESCI Jury during WFF 2023.

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