I don’t think I will ever not be in awe of The Brutalist after learning about this one shocking detail. The story of The Brutalist follows László Tóth, a renowned European architect who survives the Holocaust and immigrates to America. László is eventually hired to design a building for Harrison, a rich businessman, who also ᴀssists him in getting his wife and niece to America. Reviews for The Brutalist have been exceptional, and it is currently being viewed as a frontrunner to win Best Picture at the 2025 Academy Awards.
The Brutalist is part of a long list of recent movies that have very long runtimes. The Brutalist has a long runtime of 3 hours and 35 minutes, and even includes an intermission, which I found refreshing. However, there is a major difference between The Brutalist and other recent movies with long runtimes, such as last year’s Best Picture winner, Oppenheimer, and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. In comparison to these movies, The Brutalist only had a budget of $10 million, which is shockingly low.
The Brutalist’s Budget Was Only $10 Million & I Can’t Believe It
The Brutalist Includes Many Awe-Inspiring Sequences
By the time The Brutalist’s opening credits were rolling, I immediately knew I was watching a special film. The Brutalist’s opening sequence, which features László walking through a ship as a voiceover reads out a letter from his wife, Erzsébet, is awe-inspiring. Instead of showing the full scale of the ship, director Brady Corbet decides to keep the camera close to László. In fact, it is almost impossible to tell he is even on a ship until the Statue of Liberty is shown.
Sequences like this prove how Corbet was able to make The Brutalist for only $10 million. Instead of grand sH๏τs of a ship as it approaches the New York City skyline, Corbet chooses to focus on the film’s primary character. Keeping the camera close to László actually makes this sequence much more effective, and immediately makes it clear to the audience how much he has been through to get to America. However, even though Corbet pulls off this opening sequence brilliantly, it is still shocking that The Brutalist only had a budget of $10 million.
The Brutalist Looks & Feels Like A Big Budget Epic
The Brutalist Doesn’t Feel Like A Traditional Indie Movie
Since they are both character studies of tortured men in the mid-1900s, I think it is fair to compare The Brutalist to the aforementioned Oppenheimer. This comparison is necessary to make because The Brutalist truly does feel like a big budget epic. Clearly, Corbet doesn’t have the same resources as Christopher Nolan, but The Brutalist seems to have the same ambitions and scale as Oppenheimer. This is shocking, since Oppenheimer had a significantly higher budget than The Brutalist.
Several moments in The Brutalist could easily convince an unknowing audience member that it was made for close to $100 million.
While The Brutalist only had a budget of $10 million, Oppenheimer had a mᴀssive budget of $100 million. The differences in their budgets prove how impressive The Brutalist is, as Corbet was able to tell a grand, three-plus-hour story which features mᴀssive, cathedral-like buildings and a mesmerizing train crash, with only ten percent of the budget of Oppenheimer. Several moments in The Brutalist could easily convince an unknowing audience member that it was made for close to $100 million, which is a testament to Corbet’s craftsmanship.
How The Brutalist Was Made With Such A Small Budget
Corbet Making The Brutalist With A $10 Million Budget Is A Huge Accomplishment
When setting out to direct The Brutalist, Corbet and his writing partner and wife Mona Fastvold were way more confident than anyone else. Most people believed making The Brutalist on a budget of just $10 million was an impossible task. However, Corbet and Fastvold have made several movies on very small budgets, so they felt confident they could pull it off. In an interview with GQ, Corbet said:
Most people just couldn’t wrap their head around the ambition of the project. And I kept telling everybody, like, ‘Listen, we sH๏τ Vox Lux in 22 days.’ We’re pretty accustomed to operating without a safety net. We did our very best not to edit ourselves too much. It became clear pretty early on that it was going to be a long script and a big story, and Mona and I just sort of said to ourselves, you know, We’ll figure it out.
To save money, Corbet decided to shoot The Brutalist in Hungary, where labor and materials are cheaper. Additionally, Hungary provided great tax credits. However, Corbet wouldn’t budge on his decision to shoot The Brutalist on VistaVision, which is double the cost of shooting on traditional 35mm film. To make up for this, Corbet decided he would shoot The Brutalist in just 33 days, instead of the originally planned 36 days, which is a mᴀssive accomplishment. Overall, I am truly shocked that Corbet found a way to make The Brutalist as good as it is for just $10 million.
Source: GQ
