>>At least panavision was something you could see. Worse offender, IMO, was the latest "Titanic", where the most important selling point was "it cost $nnnnnn to make".
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>The latest "Titanic"? You mean as opposed to the sequels?
So Bruce Willis really was there and saved them all, so there was a sequel? ;)
For me, the latest was about ten years ago, take or take.
>In fact the cost of making "Titanic" was more like an albatross than a selling point, as you put it. As successful as it turned out to be, some don't remember that it was widely expected to be a bomb of historic proportions. The cost was well known but that was from industry gossip and news reports of overruns (which there were). It wasn't until preview audiences reacted enthusiastically that it stopped being an industry joke.
By the time it came to then FRY, it was advertised as "the movie that cost n million dollars", and the meme among the gullible tabloid scribblers was that it had a budget larger than that of some countries.