'Star Wars' Trilogy Movies Ranked By Their Budget

Star Wars

Jul 30

Just like in real life, the lifeforms that populate the Star Wars galaxy are concerned about money: there’s Watto, who is concerned about being paid credits to help the Jedi fix their ship, and the whole premise of Episode I is a trade dispute. Han Solo is constantly on the run from Jabba the Hutt for dropping his cargo and losing his profits, and Rey uses the bartering system to some degree of success on Jakku. The producers of Star Wars on planet Earth also need to be concerned about the cost of creating the Star Wars galaxy and how much profit they can make. Here, we will take a look at each of the Star Wars trilogy movies and see how expensive they were to make. Inflation-adjusted numbers are shown in brackets at the end of each entry.

8. A New Hope (1977) - $11 Million ($51.5 Million After Inflation)

For the first movie in the franchise, it makes sense that A New Hope would be the one with the lowest budget. George Lucas had just come off the commercial success of American Graffiti, which had put him on the map as an up-and-coming, promising movie director. This film went on to be nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, and is considered to be one of the best deals that a studio, in this case, Universal, ever made. On a $777,000 budget, American Graffiti made over $115 million. It was a good thing that Lucas made this money - even though American Graffiti was a commercial and artistic success, Universal passed on Star Wars, and while 20th Century Fox agreed to take on this unusual script, it was slow in providing its studio budget to Lucas and his producer, Gary Kurtz. The two of them spent $1million of their own money on the production costs before 20th Century Fox gave them a working budget. Within the $11 million they were allotted, George and his team were able to create special effects never used before, and movie magic was made, forever changing our world.

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7. The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - $30 Million ($79.2 Million After Inflation)

With the success of A New Hope, it makes sense that its sequel would have a bigger budget - in this case, over twice the amount allotted for the first movie. When George Lucas wrote the original script for A New Hope, he had so much material (he was already thinking of Bendu back in the 1970s!) that when he finally finished the first script, he planned for sequels - in fact, his deal with 20th Century Fox to maintain control over the sequels is considered to be one of the savviest deals ever made. Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill also signed on for three films. Lucas used the money he made on A New Hope to be able to independently fund The Empire Strikes Back, and his investment paid off - more special effects, different settings, and more characters - leading the to the top-grossing film of 1980, earning $209 million.

6. Return Of The Jedi (1983) - $32.5 Million ($92.6 Million After Inflation)

It makes sense that we round out the first six with the last movie in the original trilogy. Its budget was only slightly higher than The Empire Strikes Back, but it made more than its predecessor, being the highest-grossing film of 1983 with $252 million in earnings. This rounded out the original trilogy’s storyline, with Darth Vader coming full circle in his character arc and Luke and Co. bringing peace to the galaxy by (SPOILER ALERT) blowing up the Death Star (again) and killing off (we thought) the evil Emperor Palpatine. Not only were there the requisite special effects, but also the entire Ewok village on Endor with real-life Ewoks, not to mention many creatures that were built and designed by Lucasfilm Ltd.

5. Revenge Of The Sith (2005) - $113 Million ($167 Million After Inflation)

This is the last of the prequel films. Unlike the original trilogy, where the cost of each movie increased, this third installment cost less than the previous two. There are a couple of theories for this: one, Revenge of the Sith relied heavily on CGI effects, which may have cut the costs of filming on location. The other theory is that the first film in this series, The Phantom Menace, was so critically panned that the next film, Attack of the Clones, suffered a huge hit at the box office. (There was so much hype regarding The Phantom Menace that it made $431,088,295, but the audience was less trusting toward Attack of the Clones, and it made $302,191,252.) So, it could very well be that Lucas and the Lucasfilm Ltd. company did not want to spend as much money on this film since they could not be sure what direction it would take. While it did not do as well as The Phantom Menace, Revenge of the Sith still brought in more than Attack of the Clones with $380,270,577 and is considered to be the best in that trilogy, and, over time, has become many people’s favorite.

4. The Phantom Menace (1999) & Attack Of The Clones (2002) - $115 Million (TPM $195.8, AOTC $181.4 Million After Inflation)

George and Padem — Image Source: Starwars.com

By the time the prequel trilogy was made, it makes sense that the budget would have increased. Inflation alone would account for swelling costs. And CGI was a new form of technology at the time, and it cost a lot more than the models and other special effects that were used in the original trilogy. The CGI technology was used to create more elaborate settings and characters - instead of being built by hand, characters like Yoda and Jar Jar Binks were computer-generated - but still needed actors like Ahmed Best to voice and be on set for them. There were also more on-location filmings in Episodes I & II, and these shoots were in different parts of the world. All of these factors must have contributed to increased costs.

3. The Last Jedi (2017) - $317 Million ($303.3 Million)

Now we are up to the sequels, which mark the storytelling shift away from Lucas to Disney, which bought Lucasfilm Ltd. in October 2012 for $4 billion. As Disney had that kind of money to buy the property in the first place, it stands to reason that the company also had the budget to greatly expand the production costs. The Last Jedi is the second of the sequel trilogy, and even though it was the least expensive to make, its budget was already over double that of the most expensive prequel films, with only fifteen years in between them. The Last Jedi was the highest-grossing film of 2017, and the ninth highest-grossing film of all time, with $620,181,382 made for Disney.

2. The Rise Of Skywalker (2019) - $416 Million ($305.2 Million After Inflation)

Image Source: memory-alpha.fandom.com

Amazingly, with this cost, The Rise of Skywalker came in under its budget. According to Forbes, this could be attributed to less post-production activity - Disney insisted on the December release date, so there was less time for editing, and, therefore, less cost. There were also not as many reshoots of scenes as there were for The Force Awakens, which also kept costs down. The Rise of Skywalker ended up making Disney over $1 billion when all was said and done, the third highest-grossing film of 2019, despite its mixed reviews.

1. The Force Awakens (2015) - $447 Million ($366.3 Million After Inflation)

Image Description: This is a movie poster for The Force Awakens — Image Source: starwars.com

This is the most expensive movie ever made. When Disney took over Lucasfilm Ltd., it wanted to show that it could continue the Skywalker saga in a big way - and Disney delivered. Released ten years after Revenge of the Sith, which was the least costly of the prequel trilogy, Disney broke records in its budgeting for the first of its Star Wars movies. It cost over $533 million to make, but tax breaks brought it down to $447 million. The huge cost can be attributed to travel expenses and filming on location, not using CGI for as many special effects, and the salaries for its cast - Harrison Ford is rumored to have earned between $10-20 million for his participation in the film, not to mention, the “legacy” salaries that Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher commanded for their return to the franchise. In return, The Force Awakens set records for opening day earnings and went on to make over $2 billion.

Well, is the expense worth it? Almost fifty years in and billions of dollars made, the Star Wars franchise has shown that it has been worth every penny to its fans.

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