Gareth Edwards made his name for being able to do a lot with very little, seeing as his breakthrough feature Monsters was made on a shoestring budget and delivered some top-notch visual effects the filmmaker orchestrated himself in order to give off the impression of a much more expensive movie than it really was, but it turns out that he’s applying the exact same sentiment to The Creator.
Having instantly graduated to mega budget franchise fare through the Godzilla reboot and billion-dollar Star Wars spin-off Rogue One, you’d have thought he’d be happy playing in sandboxes that run up a tab well north of $100 million or more. However, even if you’d never be able to guess in a million years by watching the trailer, The Creator comes in at a thrifty (by the standards of blockbuster sci-fi) $86 million.
DC’s The Flash and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania carried respective price tags of $200 million each and came under relentless – and entirely deserved – criticism for their subpar visual effects and general pixelated garishness.
For less than half of that total, Edwards looks to have crafted yet another immersive, engaging, and visually stunning universe that’s hopefully going to deliver as much on the action and narrative front as it does on an eye-candy level.
If people can make movies like this for $86 million, then why does Hollywood feel the need to spend more than twice as much on projects that end up looking 10 times worse on the big screen?
