Regarding the cost of Hollywood movies in the 1920s in this book, I think it is necessary to introduce the situation at that time to you.

When the movie was just born, around 1900, the length of the movie was usually a few minutes, more than ten minutes, and the cost was pitiful. A movie could be made for hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars.

With the continuous development of film technology and the huge progress of social economy, the cost of films is also increasing. On the one hand, these low-cost films are increasingly losing the market, and on the other hand, the US dollar is constantly depreciating. In other words, the movies shot at $1,000 in 1900 often cost a lot to make the same movie in 1905.

After 1910, Hollywood developed rapidly, and small film companies were constantly being swallowed up and integrated. Large film companies almost monopolized the main market of the film industry. The films produced during this period were no longer the few minutes they were in the past, and the production was relatively well-made, and investment in clothing, props, lighting and other related projects also increased.

Adolf Chuck, in 1912, introduced a movie called "Queen Elizabeth", and the introduction fee alone reached 20,000 US dollars. Griffith's "Birth of a Country" in 1915 cost $10, and the net profit was 20 million. In 1914, Rabati's average cost of "The Secret of Million Dollars" cost $125,000 US dollars. In 1916, "The Party's Fighting Different" cost $2 million. According to the depreciation of the US dollar at that time, the same movie would definitely exceed 10 million by 1926. In the first ten years of the 20th world's popular Hollywood star Birkford, Chuck offered her an annual salary of $500,000. In 1917, Chaplin signed a $1 million contract with the "First National Film Company" and used this money to make four movies.

In "History of World Film" written by George Sadur, this records the production of films in the decade after World War I (that is, the 1920s): "Around 200 million US dollars of American films are used to produce 800 films every year, and the investment in films exceeds 1.5 billion US dollars." So, the investment in each film is basically around 250,000 US dollars.
Chapter completed!