A Million Bucks An Episode...For What?

[The 14th Colony]

I've had this question on my mind that I can't answer. When BG was cancelled it was stated, and mentioned many times since, that high production costs in excess or up to one million for each episode was what led to the decision to pull it off the air. Here is where my confusion begins...The main sets were built, most of them were, for the most part; the expensive collection of main bridge monitors and computers had been lent out by a certain computer company (I don't remember which) in exchange for advertising or bylines (again, I don't remember the details); except for Greene there were no high profile cast members to demand giant salaries; and the majority of special effects shots were used and reused over and over throughout the series...so what did one million in 1978 dollars per episode actually go toward?

Does anybody have any idea?

[Senmut]

I have often wondered the same thing myself. I personally doubt that it really cost that much, once the pilot, and some initial shots were done. Just another excuse from the braindead NitWerk suits for why they yanked the best show of the '78 season.

[thomas7g]

well... I know that every laser bolt cost $1000 to do back in the days when gas was about 25 cents. Also a scifi show has basic costs like creating alien environments, alien masks, costumes etc.

[Senmut]

But a million cubits...uh, bucks a pop? Costume departments are full of exotic stuff. I still think it was an excuse.

[Shatter]

Having learned more about the original production, this is a question I've had too. Once I'd learned that many special effects shots were reused throughout the season, I wondered how the price tag for each episode had become so high. Although I'm sure there were some high costs associated with individual episodes, I honestly wonder if this figure wasn't the result of the twisting of numbers by a handful of execs who wanted to invest money in other shows that they viewed as more "viable".

[The 14th Colony]

Thanks for the responses folks. Regardless, like Richard Hatch himself, we are still essentially clueless to the real reasons why it cost so much, though I suspect that Shatter's reasoning is perhaps the most accurate.

I honestly wonder if this figure wasn't the result of the twisting of numbers by a handful of execs who wanted to invest money in other shows that they viewed as more "viable".

[The 14th Colony]

well... I know that every laser bolt cost $1000 to do back in the days when gas was about 25 cents.

$1000 per laser bolt? Holy Christmas! Look at how far we've come in technology, now you can easily create them with Photoshop-similar programs. What is truly amazing is that George Lucas was able to pull off Star Wars with 9 million dollars, and Universal spent a million an episode for far less effects shots. I wonder that the defiled revival is expected to cost per episode if it goes to a series, and what it cost for the mini-series.

[TwoBrainedCylon]

I think a lot of the money went to the silver cowboy hats.

Two-Brain

[peter noble]

I think the initial episodes were $1M, then the figure was about $750,000.

In Cinefantastique, Richard D James the pd says he only had a budget of $17,000 for sets!

Peter

[Charybdis]

I think the figure might have been a total of everything that went into the sets, actors, spfx etc. Remember that Tektronix had donated tons of computers, etc. for the bridge set and an airline gave them flight sims and stuff like that.

The $1 million per episode was probably the way the network let it out to attract people to watch. Probably more of a marketing ploy than anything else. I have no doubt that a million bucks went into the production of the pilot and perhaps Lost Planet, but after that, there was hardly a million dollars laying around for each episode. That's why we got the back lot western sets for the next several shows...

[repcisg]

There is a factor used by the suits to measure the profitability of most every thing. It's called ROI or Return On Investment.

The ROI for Battlestar was pretty close to zero. Yes they some money off of it but shows like Mork & Mindy have astronomical ROI's. Thus the cancellation. This also why most Science Fiction shows look cheap or are done on shoestring budgets. They have to keep the ROI inline with other genera.

[nightscape2112]

its true that lorne green was the best known actor of the original cast, but the others like hatch, benedict, seymour, begely jr. and colicos they all had a good resume.

then there are the guest stars that came on for different episodes like fred astaire, lloyd bridges and pactric macnee.

still the number of one million sounds high, but there were high quallity stars on the original series.

nightscape

[peter noble]

I seem to recail GAL stating that the effects budget (practical and optical) on The Incredible Hulk was bigger than BSG's.

Peter

[PlaidSquadron]

Of course, its all in the way the books are kept. And in Hollywood, that isn't always straight forward (read Fatal Subtraction if you are interested)

My guess would be there was a lot of costs in actors, film and other stuff. Add in the cost of "spec scripts" (items that may get used later, and not necessarily BSG related) and TPTB can pretty much make the numbers equal anything they want

[BST]

Originally posted by Charybdis
I think the figure might have been a total of everything that went into the sets, actors, spfx etc. Remember that Tektronix had donated tons of computers, etc. for the bridge set and an airline gave them flight sims and stuff like that.

The $1 million per episode was probably the way the network let it out to attract people to watch. Probably more of a marketing ploy than anything else. I have no doubt that a million bucks went into the production of the pilot and perhaps Lost Planet, but after that, there was hardly a million dollars laying around for each episode. That's why we got the back lot western sets for the next several shows...

This is most likely closest to the mark. The $1M/episode could be the AVERAGE COST/EPISODE. If you take the TOTAL COST of the 17 episodes and divide it by 17.....

This is just a thought.

BST

[Charybdis]

Am I imagining things or didn't early promos and posters for the pilot movie say something like it cost in the area of $14 million???

[The 14th Colony]

I couldn't say, I have no memory of that.

[thomas7g]

BST- its 17 episodes, but remember alot of those are two parters. The original pilot stretched three hours.

[BST]

Agreed. The 2-part eps + the pilot definitely would have been more expensive in total dollars while some of the single eps would have been less, hence the "average". (Probably would have been better to have said "Avg Cost/Hour").

btw, is there any "accounting info" available, about the show? Costs, etc.

BST

[Reaper63]

I tend to agree with that figure being an average of the total season. When you look at Eps like Gun on Ice Planet Zero, you definately had to spend alot more money then on Murder on the Rising Star. The Snow effects, and everything had to put a big dent into the budget, then in War of the Gods, you had the location filming, you had to set up the big ship wreckage and everything, plus those cool red filters

All in all, I don't think every show cost this, even with the big name guest stars, but I can see it averaging to this.

[kingfish]

Another factor: Guest stars. Lloyd Bridges, Patrick Macnee, Fred Astair, and so on.

[Senmut]

Originally posted by Charybdis
Am I imagining things or didn't early promos and posters for the pilot movie say something like it cost in the area of $14 million???

I saw that in the ad in our local paper's theatre, when it was theatrically released, in June of '79. I may still have it somewhere. But that was the figure printed.

[AlphaNova]

I'm completely making a guess here, but I know back then a common tactic was for the studio to use the budget for a weekly series to help pay off the costs of the pilot, especially an expensive pilot like Galactica. It could be that they were bleeding off money from the weekly episodes to cover the excess expenses of "Sage of a Star World".

[Last Battlestar]

Exactly, AlphaNova.

The high cost of the pilot episode would have been armortized over the entire run of the series. The big 'event' two-parters like 'Ice Planet Zero' would have been dramatically more expensive than say, 'Murder on the Rising Star'. The average cost of the entire series would have been around $1M.

Don't forget the behind the scenes costs. Film development, editing, music scoring and recording, sound effects, voice looping, advertisment costs, blah, blah, blah. Location filming was, and still is, horrendously expensive. Hence the old TV series trick of throwing in a 'flashback' episode or courtroom drama episode shot entirely on stage. It's a way of knocking out an inexpensive episode or two per season.

The Galactica model herself was supposedly $50,000 and the process of motion control bluescreen filming was very time consuming ($$$) than the CGI of today. There would have been dozens of people on the payroll to create the show on a weekly basis. In fact, after watching a couple of episodes today, I'm surprised the figure wasn't higher, even in 70's dollars. That show still knocks the socks off many current sci fi shows today in it's production values.

Mike, Oz.

[AlphaNova]

The cost listed was probably an average for the entire series. Some shows cost less, others cost more. Early on they probably were paying off the pilot's costs. This was common back then. Money was taken from one pocket and placed into another when needed. Considering the production values for "Saga of a Star World" and "Lost Planet of the Gods" it's surprising they didn't do an episode containing flashbacks from previous episodes. Remember Buck Rogers? During it's first season they had to do a flashback episode. And none of the Buck episodes looks as if they were spending the money Galactica did during it's first five hours.

[shiningstar]

I think it actually went for 'administration' costs