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I was just reading a piece about I am Legend and noticed that one particular scene that was shot on Brooklyn Bridge cost five million dollars.

This piqued my curiosity as to what the most expensive scene ever shot was?

Napoleon Wilson
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Travis
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    It raises the question of whether it's a CG, composite or real shot... you also have to wonder about actor's salaries in here! – Liath Jul 11 '13 at 10:33
  • Why the down vote? I think its a valid question. – Travis Jul 11 '13 at 12:42
  • @Travis i am not the down-voter or close-voter but answering this will be vary tough and many things are here contribute as a problem, as mentioned by Liath. So that may be the case of down/close-vote – Ankit Sharma Jul 11 '13 at 15:35
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    I'm not a fan of this question, because over time the answer to this is going to change with inflation and price hikes and bigger movies. – DForck42 Jul 11 '13 at 16:18
  • You asked for a scene, but you can start here with movies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films – DustinDavis Jul 11 '13 at 16:44
  • I find reports of the Helicopter scene in Swordfish followed by the evacuation scene at the beginning of I Am Legend which cost $5m to shoot. I cannot find any backup/proof for this information. – DustinDavis Jul 11 '13 at 16:50
  • I think if you outlined some criteria like asking for salaries, explain why CGI should not be counted, you'll get a better response. – Tablemaker Jul 11 '13 at 18:05
  • Yep - this one might be a little too fluid for the site. The I am Legend scene did cost 5M, but there was CG involved, the Swordfish 'flying bus' scene cost 13M and was practical as far as I can see, however, the 13 minute fight scene in Matrix: Reloaded cost 40M alone (pretty much all CG). That said, I doubt even the Swordfish stuff wasn't digitally enhanced. – Nobby Jul 11 '13 at 18:34
  • The last date the answer was edited gives a great indicator of how recent or out-of-date it is. – Kyralessa Jul 12 '13 at 07:52
  • I excluded the CGI based on the first comment. Maybe I should just leave it open to include everything? The actors salaries would be a bit difficult to include as I suppose they'd get the same lump sum even if they weren't involved in the scene, I'm not sure though. – Travis Jul 12 '13 at 08:10
  • I always thought Water World had the most expensive scene. It was a crazy expensive movie. – DustinDavis Mar 21 '14 at 17:32
  • My friend has a DVD on his rack titled "In the Shadow of the Moon" (not the 2019 instance) that contains the line in the credits "Filmed on location on the Moon". If we compute the cost of shooting said footage we end up with a total cost of 25.4 billion; but it doesn't make sense to distribute it by scene because almost all of the cost was startup cost. – Joshua Feb 19 '21 at 18:20

2 Answers2

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According to this book, Cleopatra's entry into Rome from the 1963 Elizabeth Taylor film is the most expensive scene in motion picture history (that must be assuming that you adjust for inflation).

The scene is on YouTube. As well as the massive set and giant Sphinx the scene required 10,000 extras, Elizabeth Taylor's dress cost $6,500 alone.

Tom77
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Big Screen Rome By Monica Silveira Cyrino evaluates Cleopatra's entry into Rome scene from "Cleopatra" (1963) around 1 million dollars. Even with inflation rate of 711% from 1963 to 2018 it's just around 8.1 million. However, there are several sources (1, 2) that give the first place to Neo vs. Agents Smith in “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003) with 40 million

inmydelorean
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  • Perhaps you could explain where you get your inflation percentage,and what made the scene so expensive? – Gnemlock Jan 18 '18 at 07:39
  • There are numerous inflation calculators, like this one link It's obviously because of all CGI effects for the scene that have made it so expensive. – inmydelorean Jan 18 '18 at 07:48
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    Maybe, but it is possible some have never seen it, so explaining the cost would be pretty helpful. Also, one of your sourcesis just a reprint of the other. It would look better if you just stated your source, instead of using wikipedia-esque number tags – Gnemlock Jan 18 '18 at 07:51
  • I don't see two identical articles in these two sources. They have different facts about the same scene so they are not duplicates. There are duplicates that I've not included to the list. – inmydelorean Jan 18 '18 at 08:58