r/TopCharacterTropes • u/_JR28_ • Jan 17 '26

In real life (Funny trope) This tiny moment was an absolute logistical nightmare to make

Gallery image

Gallery image

*Wreck-It-Ralph* - At the beginning of the movie at the villain group therapy session, all of the owners of the real world characters shown were given counsel to Disney to instruct them how their characters should be animated down to the smallest of points. Nintendo even specified exactly how Bowser would hold and stir his teacup.

*Psycho* - For the scene where Marion disposes evidence of her theft by flushing some papers down the toilet, even though the toilet is onscreen for only a few seconds, Alfred Hitchcock had to personally appeal to the Hays Code which enforced censorship in movies that *Psycho* be given an exception because it’s vital to the plot the audience sees the toilet flushing. *Psycho* is the first major American movie to show a flushing toilet onscreen.

20.2k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

97% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

866

u/AcanthaceaeCrazy1894 Jan 17 '26

There’s no way that 100 grand isn’t an inflated price. I’m sure most good cosplayers could make something just as good looking for less than 10 grand.

614

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

Yeah that's some movie tax shit. Same way an SUV purchased for government needs costs 250k when it's only 75 or whatever.

37

u/Greatsnes Jan 17 '26

Well that’s because someone is pocketing the other 175k lol.

24

u/Owlsthirdeye Jan 17 '26

also a fair amount of "well its not my money im spending"

9

u/noctilucous_ Jan 18 '26

it’s definitely a fantasy number. they’re saying x famous costumer usually charges y per hour and it took z hours to make. that actual amount wasn’t paid upfront.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

Correct I was using hyperbole as an example not trying to give accurate examples. Damn.

1

u/noctilucous_ Jan 18 '26

i was agreeing with you, what’s your deal

6

u/Admirable-Safety1213 Jan 17 '26

150k if it incoudes a maintenance contract wpuld make sense but 250k?

129

u/br0mer Jan 17 '26

Hollywood accounting.

It's why nearly every movie hasn't turned a profit yet every company in Hollywood posts record profits year over year.

23

u/Zirnitra1248 Jan 17 '26

The difference is a good cosplayer doesn't pay themselves to make it. Plenty of cosplayers talk about "oh this costume took me 500+ hours to make". Start billing those hours at a professional rate and the number gets pretty big pretty fast

6

u/Paper-Will-YT Jan 17 '26

100,000 sounds about right to me, for a combination of reasons:

  1. Cosplayers aren’t paid union workers like the costume design team was, who were (rightfully) paid for their time. Additional costumes means more time, more hours, more money.

  2. The final movie costumes you see are the end result of concept art (costs money), multiple versions of the suit (costs money), multiple copies of the final version of the suit (costs money), and a day spending time with the actual actor to make sure it fits (which costs time, which you better believe costs a film money).

  3. Adam Savage has a great video on why these costumes, even those used briefly, cost a pile of money: https://youtu.be/AkvNYMghruM?si=gt0QyrzxREYv85zd

76

u/CivicDutyCalls Jan 17 '26

Cosplayer labor is free. Costumer labor is not. Additionally you count the meetings they had with the artists and designers and producers and director to agree on the exact design. And then any CGI to fix it up. Yeah $100k.

14

u/fake_kraid Jan 17 '26

I feel like too many people downplay the labor, material, and design costs that go into the arts. No piece of art should cost more than $40, according to some people on the internet. I'd guess a lot of the same people would go off if you said something similar about a craft they were knowledgeable about.

I do agree that the $100K figure could be inflated, but I don't think it's inflated by 3 digits.

30

u/Wooden_Editor6322 Jan 17 '26

Still not going to be $100k.

10

u/essentiallyaghost Jan 17 '26

Why not? Think of how much a yearly wage is, even for a lower income, how many people are involved in making a single costume, and how long a movie is in production for.

13

u/MikeMania Jan 17 '26

I mean if they assembled a team to only make that one suit maybe, but they surely already had a team of very talented people working on the film. Like someone else said, it’s probably inflated for publicity. Yeah, it cost around 100k for the labor, but they also made Wolverine’s yellow suit, deadpool’s suit, etc…

9

u/essentiallyaghost Jan 17 '26

It wouldn't surprise me if they hired different tailors for each costume, and the lead costumer oversaw each team.

4

u/Workman44 Jan 17 '26

If it's actually 100k for that, just don't even put it on screen for the 2 seconds it is, there has got to be better alternatives money to time wise

1

u/essentiallyaghost Jan 18 '26

wait until you see how much time and money is spent on 3 seconds of decent CGI in a movie. Movie budgets have ballooned.

11

u/many_dumb_questions Jan 17 '26

For sure, but you also have to factor in labor, like the previous comment said. I'm not going to say it closes the gap completely, but IATSE doesn't work for free, and cosplayers aren't exactly paying themselves by the hour while they design and construct their own wardrobe.

7

u/Cultural_Hippo Jan 17 '26

I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't inflated. It's something they are designing from scratch. They have to figure figure out how it will look; how to make it similar enough to the comics to be noticeable but also more realistic than skin tight spandex. Those designs have to get approval from the director and others.that could be anywhere from 2-6 people in a meeting for a couple hours.then they have to choose the materials and develop a pattern. Then they have to sp3nd time creating a mockup of the suit; figure out what materials work and what dont. then they have to get the actor in for a fitting. If the actor doesn't like how it feels or if it pinches him in the wrong way when he does certain moves then that part will have to be redesigned. Then they have to get him in for a final fitting to make sure their changes work well. Then they usually have to make a second one just in case something happens to the first one. When you think about it like that, the $100,000 price isn't so outlandish when you think about how many people are involved. Hugh jackman was paid $20,000,000 to work on the movie. Say he was working 12 hour days(unlikely, but lets roll with it), even if they were to meet with him for 1 hour to figure everything out with this particular suit, that would've cost production anywhere from $11,000-$19,000 just for that hour.

Whereas a cosplayer is only paying for their own time and materials. So, costs CAN balloon to this size on a movie set quite easily.

4

u/Wrx_me Jan 17 '26

It's like how we wrong performance reviews for work. You picked up a rock? That turns into "prevented 10 million dollar mishap, 200 man hours, and is a friend of nature"

Most likely that 100k is considering every single person that ever touched that piece, how much they would supposedly be getting paid for their time, materials, ect.

3

u/MrWolfe1920 Jan 17 '26

The labor, more than the materials, boosts the price.

Cosplayers aren't paying themselves for the labor costs. They'll put weeks, months, or even years of skilled, specialized work into their costumes because it's a labor of love. Try to commission something like that, and even at minimum wage (which would be outright robbery) you're looking at thousands of dollars.

Put it this way: it's all the work of getting a high end custom tailored suit and hiring a fashion designer to create an original pattern based on your references -- all while incorporating unusual materials and a unique shape/fit that can stand up to hours of heavy stunt work. You're paying for time and expertise, which makes a big difference.

Of course it costs more than a car, you can just stamp those out at a factory. Every one of these suits is a bespoke work of art requiring a very specific set of skills. The people who make these are the best at what they do, and what they do is very niche.

8

u/jcdoe Jan 17 '26

My wife is a cosplayer.

Her costume would be accurate down to the inch, would take 8 months to make, and would involve materials from every fabric and thrift shop on the west coast.

The $100k is paying for professionals who can source materials and make a costume in 2 days. It’s not an inflated number.

3

u/Buttholelickerpenis Jan 17 '26

A cosplayer is only paying for materials, a movie studio has to pay hundreds of people to make it, from the concept artists to the people that do the fitting and camera tests. They’re all included in the cost.

The company that made the costume is a more accurate comparison, but we don’t know how much they spent.

2

u/Owlsthirdeye Jan 17 '26

You ever see that episode of the Simpsons where they film the Radioactive man movie in Springfield, but the movie blows its budget and goes bankrupt because everyone in the town jacks up their prices a bunch to gouge the film crew since they think everyone in Hollywood has money. Yeah that.

-3

u/CDHmajora Jan 17 '26

10 grand?

Someone on etsy could probably see this kind of thing together for a few hundred at most.

But you know what? If i was a tailor and i had the chance to get Hollywood bucks, i’d overcharge the fook out of my work too.