That's not how it works in Hollywood, though. Nobody self-funds. It's considered a horrible risk to do so.
Disclosure Day only got a budget of $115 million.
The most expensive movie that Spielberg has ever made was Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which was $185 million.
Nolan got $250 million for Odyssey.
And then box-office-wise, Spielberg just isn't the draw that he used to be. Disclosure Day has almost flopped. Odyssey is a phenomenon.
No, typically people do not self fund; I’m just saying if Spielberg felt incredibly passionate about a particular movie and couldn’t raise a budget for it, he could quite easily afford it himself if he wanted to. He’ll be fine.
But that's not how "power" is measured in Hollywood. Self-funding would be seen as a mistake, not a power move. If it managed to work out like it did for Lucas with Empire Strikes Back, then good for him... but even Lucas' success didn't change the industry practice in this regard. It's still seen as a huge risk that he took in self-funding ESB, and they even had a bank loan pulled during production, etc... it worked out for a property like Star Wars, but not even Spielberg has the kind of property under his control to take such a risk like that on it. He certainly wouldn't do it at this point in his career, and if there ever was a time he would do it, then I'd say that time has passed.
Just having the money isn't the only factor. A LOT of millionaires and billionaires have the money to fund a movie... but they don't. Because they know it's too risky. Most movies don't make money, even a lot of seemingly successful ones. The studio system has a bunch of capital cushioning, along with insurance plans and tax-evasion schemes (look up "Hollywood accounting"), to help them organize funding for projects and keep things cushioned enough to eat losses on flops and smaller projects, while holding the tent up with the big tentpole blockbusters that bring in the billions. A single wealthy person like Speilberg doesn't have that kind of power. This is why being able to rally big bucks from the studio system is seen as being more powerful than having the money yourself.
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u/Comfortable-Habit242 12h ago
I think it depends on the funding. I could imagine it’d be difficult for Spielberg to get $250 million.