Why do special effects cost so much in movies?
Simple. If it takes 100 man hours to put together some 20 second scene which is all computer effects – like most of the 3rd “Pirates” movie is – you are paying those computer technicians a high salary for 100 hours and that only accounts for 20 seconds of a 2 1/2 hour movie! Sunshine uses more “old school” effects which are cheaper and look better, but are out of fashion in Hollywood for some stupid reason. I saw “Moon” a few weeks ago, and it used “Star Wars” era effects like miniatures instead of CGI, so it was basically made for just a few million $ and looked better than Transformers II, ironically. I guess the short answer is that Hollywood throws money at a movie to compensate for their lack of talent. While other directors can’t afford it, so they use ingenuity and talent to create effects.
