The Dark Knight

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The Dark Knight Preproduction and Expenses

The Dark Knight was a DC film made in 2008 starring Christian Bale as the infamous Bat Man and Heath Ledger as the most iconic Joker to date. The budget for the film was around $180 million USD. Filming lasted from 18th of April 2007 to 11th of November 2007 and starred many locations and great actors.

Staffing: How much were Cast and Crew Paid?

Director: Christopher Nolan
Screen Play written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan
story written by: David S. Goyer
Characters written by: Bob Kane
Music by: James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer


Main Cast:          Role:         Payment (estimated):

  • Christian Bale- Bruce Wayne- $50 million 

  • Heath Ledger- Joker- $20 million

  • Aaron Eckhart- Harvey Dent - £25 million (net worth) 

  • Michael Caine- Alfred - $75 million (net worth)

  • Maggie Gyllenhaal- Rachel- $500,000

  • Morgan Freedam- Lucius Fox - $10 million




Wages of the crew: 

  • Special effects artists have an annul wage of around $63,970
  • Art directors made on average $89,820 a year.
  • make up artists are paid roughly $88,200 a year.
  • camera crew make around $49,430 a year
  • costume designers are paid an annual salary of $65,170
  • Editors make an annual wage of $66,690 a year, but the top 10% make around $126,250
  • location mangers vary in their wages depending on reputation and experience 
In each of these job roles there were around 10-20 filling these roles, some having a lot more or a lot less.  Each person would have received around 6 months worth of pay- half their annual salary for this movie, which, when totalled is an extreme amount of money. 
Warner Brothers in association with legendary Entertainment, Syncopy and DC comics provided all of the office space needed for the film and crew. As Time Warner is a conglomerate editors, distributors, special effects and music are all done in house due to the horizontal integration of the company, which would have saved some aspect of the budget in the long run.

Locations and sets: Where was it filmed?

There were so many locations for The Dark Knight, which is one reason why filming took 6 months. They were found by location scouting and often had to be superimposed to look more dark and gloomy in order to resemble Gotham. Though I cannot find the main costs of these locations, through my researches I've found that out pay a sum of money for the amount of hours a location is closed for due to film, it is often up to the owners of the land how much closing down their business or street or ware house will cost per hour, but will often be negotiated.

The main Locations used in The Dark Knight: 
  • Times Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
  • Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • Hong Kong, China
  • Battersea Power Station, Battersea, London, England, UK
  • Brach's Candy Factory - 401 N. Cicero Street, Chicago, Illinois, USA (Gotham Hospital exteriors) 
  • Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Millennium Station, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • Twin Anchors Restaurant & Tavern - 1655 N. Sedgwick Street, Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • Old Post Office, Chicago, Illinois, USA (bank heist) 
  • Senate House, University College London, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London, England, UK
  • Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, UK
  • South LaSalle St., Chicago, Illinois, USA (the Joker's semi-truck flip) 
  • University of Westminster, London, England, UK
  • Atwood Cafe - 1 W Washington St, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • Lower Wacker Drive, Downtown, Chicago, Illinois, USA (car chase scene)
  • Queen's Road Central, Central, Hong Kong, China
  • Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, China
  • Trump International Hotel & Tower - 401 N Wabash, Chicago, Illinois, USA (skyscraper under construction in finale)

Transport:

From the locations we can see that the film had serval main locations- Illinois, LA, London and Hong Kong. Flights would have had to have taken hundreds of cast and crew abroad to film, costing a large portion of the budget, not to mention taking equipment and then getting to locations within the cities and commandiation for the cast and crew. I cannot find the exact costs for the film but the cheapest flight for one person from illinois to hong kong is over $400, so imagine that for all the actors, and crew needed for those scenes and then return. 





Comments

  1. JCOSS Mr POctober 29, 2018 at 11:28 AM

    Sydney

    Fantastic. Very thorough research, well laid out and covering all the elements demanded by the task. Great stuff - keep up the good work.

    Please add a comment below reflecting on my comments and explaining any changes you have made.

    Mr P

    ReplyDelete

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