Back to back film production
Filming sequels "back to back" refers to the practice of filming two or more movies as one production, reducing costs and time.
Trilogies are common in the film industry, particularly in the science fiction, fantasy and adventure genres. Production companies may choose, if the first film is a financial success, to greenlight a second and a third film at the same time, and film them "back to back". In the case when a lengthy novel is split into multiple installments for its film adaptation, those installments will usually be filmed back-to-back.
Rationale
In modern filmmaking, the entire cast and crew for each film is assembled from scratch for each project. Almost all participants in the industry are freelancers who float from one project to the next and don't have much loyalty to any particular studio, as long as they get paid.
This differs from the old studio system in which studios carried large numbers of cast and crew on their payroll under long-term contracts. Modern film studios no longer have to bother with either paying people who aren't making movies right now or greenlighting films at an extreme rate to get the most out of sunk costs in their human resources. But it also means that when they want a particular person for a film, that person may be unavailable because they already committed to another film for another studio for that particular time slot. In turn, for every single film, studios (and ultimately their investors or backers) end up bearing massive transaction costs because they not only have to get the right person at the right price, but at the right time, and if they can't get that person, they have to scramble to locate a satisfactory substitute. All successful directors and producers have certain favorites they like to work with for their cast and crew, but that's of no help to the studio if that perfect character actor, costume designer, or music composer is already fully booked.
Thus, if a film does well at the box office and appears to have established a winning formula with a particular cast, crew, and storyline, then one way to minimize these transaction costs on sequels is to reassemble as much of the team as soon as possible (before anyone dies, retires, or does something else that allows them to command an even higher fee) and sign them to a single production that will be edited, released, and promoted as multiple films. It also minimizes the problem of stars visibly aging between sequels that do not have significant time gaps written in between them.
Examples
- The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers were intentionally filmed together to be one movie, but were released as separate films in 1973 and 1974 respectively.
- Superman: The Movie and Superman II were filmed simultaneously in 1977 to be a two-part epic. However, due to off-screen difficulties between the producers and the director, production on the sequel was stopped in order to finish the first film for a December 1978 release. Filming on Superman II resumed in 1979 with a new director and was released in Australia in December 1980 and in the UK and US in 1981.
- After the 1985 film Back to the Future was a success, the two sequels Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III were in production from February 1989 until March 1990 with only a three week break in principal photography between films and some of the filming of the third film overlapping with the second.
- The Toxic Avenger Part II and The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie were filmed as one movie but was later re-edited into two.
- Critters 3 and Critters 4 were shot back to back and were released in 1991 and 1992 respectively.
- Kill Bill was filmed as one film and split into two volumes released six months apart in 2003 and 2004.
- Anaconda 3: Offspring and Anacondas: Trail of Blood were filmed back-to-back.
- The two films comprising the 2008 Steven Soderbergh biopic Che were shot back to back.
- The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were filmed back to back and released six months apart from May to November 2003.
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed entirely over 274 days in New Zealand from October 1999 until December 2000 with pickup shots done prior to each film's theatrical release from 2001 to 2003.
- Like The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit trilogy was shot back-to-back in New Zealand from March 2011 until July 2012.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2 were filmed entirely from February 2009 to June 2010.
- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and Part 2 were filmed back to back
- The Bollywood movies Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 1 and Part 2 were originally shot as a single film measuring a total of 319 minutes, but since no Indian theatre would volunteer to screen a five-plus-hour movie, it was divided into two parts (160 mins and 159 mins, respectively) for the Indian market.
- The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest were filmed back-to-back and released in 2009.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End were filmed back-to-back from February 2005 until January 2007, and released a year apart in July 2006 and May 2007.
- The cancelled Spider-Man 4 and the fifth film in the series were being considered for back-to-back production.
- The fifth and sixth Resident Evil films and the fourth and fifth Transformers films were originally planned to be filmed back to back, but the decision was ultimately made to film them independently.
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Part 2 were filmed back-to-back.
- The three as-yet-untitled sequels to Avatar are being filmed back-to-back.[1]
- Avengers: Infinity War will be split in two parts that will be filmed concurrently and released as the third and fourth crossover installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with scheduled release dates set one year apart in May 2018 and May 2019.
- All the chapters in the Adams Apples film series were filmed back-to-back, and released as separate films over a period of fourteen months.
- The sequels to Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, will be filmed back-to-back.
See also
References
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