Wanted

Wanted is never going to task the little grey cells, but that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable. A throwback to the hard-actioners of the late 80’s (albeit with a high-tech CGI makeover) it doesn’t have a plot but rather a means of delivering you from one set-piece to another. You rarely have to wait ten minutes before one comes along that tries (and suceeds) in upstaging what has gone before it. It’s also refreshing to find a film that doesn’t downplay the violence in search of the R-13 (12) certificate, and thus a bigger audience but instead delivers on the frenzied bloodletting front to maximise its impact.

So, worth watching – but what I really want to comment on is the cost. The average summer tentpole movie costs in the region of $1 Million per minute. This figure excludes marketting which can sometimes double this depending on how many tie-in’s it has – the more youth orientated it is, the more will be spent on marketting. In these terms the two big hitters (or anticipated) of the summer come in at $1 / 1.2 million per minute respectively, both with a similar amount spent on marketting.

Wanted weighs in at $0.6 million per minute but makes up for the shortfall in terms of sheer braveau on the directors part. It looks about twice that. Will we see smaller budget films as a result? Unlikely, but it shows that talent can bridge the gap that funding sometimes leaves.