Cleopatra

Production Budget Analysis

What was the production budget for Cleopatra?

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison leading the cast, Cleopatra was produced by MCL Films S.A. with a confirmed budget of $44,000,000, placing it in the mid-budget category for drama films.

With a $44,000,000 budget, Cleopatra sits in the mid-range of studio releases. Marketing costs for a wide release at this level typically add $30–60 million, putting the break-even point near $110,000,000.

Budget Comparison — Similar Productions

• Charlie St. Cloud (2010): Budget $44,000,000 | Gross $48,200,000 → ROI: 10% • Argo (2012): Budget $44,500,000 | Gross $232,300,000 → ROI: 422% • 28 Days (2000): Budget $43,000,000 | Gross $62,198,945 → ROI: 45% • 65 (2023): Budget $45,000,000 | Gross $60,730,568 → ROI: 35% • A Monster Calls (2016): Budget $43,000,000 | Gross $47,309,313 → ROI: 10%

Key Budget Allocation Categories

▸ Above-the-Line Talent Drama films live or die on the strength of their performances. Securing award-caliber actors and experienced directors represents the single largest budget line item, often consuming 30–40% of the total production budget.

▸ Location Filming & Period Production Design Authentic locations — whether contemporary or historical — require scouting, permits, travel, lodging, and often significant dressing to match the story's time period. Period dramas add the cost of era-accurate props, vehicles, and set decoration.

▸ Post-Production, Color Grading & Score The editorial process for dramas is typically longer than genre films, with careful attention to pacing and tone. Color grading, a nuanced musical score, and detailed sound mixing are critical to achieving the emotional resonance that defines the genre.

Key Production Personnel

CAST: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Pamela Brown, George Cole Key roles: Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra; Richard Burton as Marcus Antonius; Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar; Pamela Brown as High Priestess

DIRECTOR: Joseph L. Mankiewicz CINEMATOGRAPHY: Leon Shamroy MUSIC: Alex North EDITING: Dorothy Spencer PRODUCTION: MCL Films S.A., Walwa Films S.A., 20th Century Fox FILMED IN: United Kingdom, United States of America

Box Office Performance

Cleopatra earned $57,777,778 domestically and $1,502 internationally, for a worldwide total of $57,779,280. The film skewed heavily domestic (100%), suggesting strong North American appeal.

Break-Even Analysis

Using the industry-standard 2.5x multiplier (P&A + exhibitor shares of 40–50% + distribution fees), Cleopatra needed approximately $110,000,000 to break even. The film fell $52,220,720 short in theatrical revenue. Ancillary streams (home media, streaming, TV) may have bridged the gap.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Revenue: $57,779,280 Budget: $44,000,000 Net: $13,779,280 ROI: 31.3%

Detailed Box Office Notes

Three weeks into its theatrical release, Cleopatra became the number-one box office film in the United States, grossing $725,000 in 17 key cities. It held the top position for the next twelve weeks before being dethroned by The V.I.P.s, which also starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. It recaptured the number-one spot three weeks later, and proved to be the highest-grossing film of 1963. By January 1964, the film had earned $15.7 million in distributor rentals from 55 theaters in the United States and Canada. It finished its box-office run with $26 million in rentals in the United States and Canada. The film was also a major hit in Italy, where it sold 10.9 million tickets. It sold a further 5.4 million tickets in France and Germany, Cleopatra was the most popular film in Polish cinemas in 1970 and by the end of that year, over 25,000 screenings had taken place in Poland, with over 5.7 million tickets sold.

By March 1966, Cleopatra had earned worldwide rentals of $38.04 million, leaving it $3 million short of breaking even. Fox eventually recouped its investment that same year when it sold the television broadcast rights to ABC for $5 million, a then-record amount paid for a single film. The film ultimately earned $40.3 million in worldwide rentals from its theatrical run.

Profitability Assessment

VERDICT: Modestly Profitable

Cleopatra earned $57,779,280 against a $44,000,000 budget (31% ROI). Full profitability was likely achieved through ancillary revenue streams.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Development

Wanger pitched the idea to various film studios, including Monogram and RKO Pictures. He also approached Taylor and her husband Michael Todd about producing the project with United Artists. Taylor expressed interest in the project but delegated the decision to Todd. Meanwhile, Twentieth Century Fox was in financial trouble following its severe box office losses of The Barbarian and the Geisha, A Certain Smile and The Roots of Heaven, all released in 1958. To reverse the studio's fortunes, studio president Spyros Skouras requested that studio executive David Brown find a viable project that would be a "big picture." Brown suggested a remake of Cleopatra (1917), which had starred Theda Bara.

In the fall of 1958, Wanger's production company entered into a coproduction agreement with Twentieth Century Fox. Wanger pitched four properties—Cleopatra, Justine, The Dud Avocado, and The Fall—for the executives to consider. They selected the first three, and Cleopatra was the first to enter into production. On September 30, Skouras held his first meeting with Wanger, and asked his secretary to retrieve the screenplay for the 1917 version of Cleopatra. Skouras insisted, "All this needs is a little rewriting. Just give me this over again and we'll make a lot of money." Because the original screenplay had been written for a silent film, the script mostly contained instructions for camera setups.

In December 1958, Ludi Claire, a writer and former actress, was hired to write a rough draft of the script. That same month, art director John DeCuir was hired to produce conceptual artwork to illustrate the visual scale of the project. In March 1959, English author Nigel Balchin was hired to write another script draft. Meanwhile, Wanger had approached Alfred Hitchcock to direct the film, having worked with him on Foreign Correspondent (1940), but Hitchcock declined. Skouras then selected Rouben Mamoulian, who had worked with Wanger on Applause (1929), to direct.

▸ Casting

At a meeting, in October 1958, production head Buddy Adler favored a relatively cheap production of $2 million, with one of Fox's contract actresses, such as Joan Collins (who tested extensively for the part), Joanne Woodward or model Suzy Parker, in the title role. Wanger protested, envisioning a much more opulent epic with a voluptuous actress as Cleopatra. Wanger suggested Susan Hayward while Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, and Gina Lollobrigida were also under consideration. When Mamoulian was hired to direct, he had offered the title role to Dorothy Dandridge, an African American, during a lunch meeting at the Romanoff's restaurant in Beverly Hills. Dandridge replied, "You won't have the guts to go through with this... They are going to talk you out of it."

On September 1, 1959, Wanger phoned Taylor again on the set of Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) in London. Taylor's then-husband Eddie Fisher relayed the message, in which she half-jokingly stated: "Tell him I'll do it for a million dollars against 10 percent of the gross." Wanger replied he would convey Taylor's request back to the studio. He called back within an hour, stating, "We've got a deal." On October 15, a contract-signing event was staged inside Adler's office where Taylor signed blank papers because the real contract would not be ready for months. Wanger had considered Laurence Olivier and Rex Harrison for the role of Julius Caesar, and Richard Burton for Mark Antony. However, the studios refused to approve Harrison and Burton. In August 1960, Boyd was cast as Mark Antony, Peter Finch as Julius Caesar and Keith Baxter as Octavian. Mamoulian had also cast Elisabeth Welch to portray one of Cleopatra's handmaidens.

During the interim, Finch and Boyd had left the production for other commitments, and each was paid his remaining salary. Laurence Olivier and Trevor Howard had turned down the role of Julius Caesar. Rex Harrison, who was the studio's fourth choice, was then cast.

▸ Production

Walter Wanger had long desired to produce a biographical film about Cleopatra. As an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, he first read Théophile Gautier's fantasy novel One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances and then Thomas North's 1579 English translation of Plutarch's Lives and William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Wanger had envisioned Cleopatra as "the quintessence of youthful femininity, of womanliness and strength," but it was not until he watched Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun (1951) that he found his ideal candidate for the role.

Around this time, Wanger had discovered through a private detective that his wife, Joan Bennett, was having an affair with her talent agent Jennings Lang. On the afternoon of December 13, 1951, Wanger shot Lang twice after having spotted him with Bennett in a parking lot near MCA. Lang survived, and Wanger, pleading insanity, served four months in prison at the Castaic Honor Farm, north of Los Angeles. Following his release, Wanger achieved a career comeback when he produced Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and I Want to Live! (1958), in which Susan Hayward won the Academy Award for Best Actress. He would soon return to his dream project of a Cleopatra biographical film.

▸ Filming & Locations

On September 25, 1961, principal photography began on the revamped production of Cleopatra. Mankiewicz had expressed his intention of directing a two-part epic: "I had in mind two separate but closely linked Elizabeth Taylor films—Caesar and Cleopatra and Antony and Cleopatra—each to run three hours, both segments to receive simultaneous release. Moreover, I felt compelled to undertake the writing of both halves myself, a measure of my total dissatisfaction with the material that had been produced to date."

At that time, he had completed 132 pages of the shooting script, with another 195 pages that remained to be written, so Mankiewicz shot the film in sequence, leaving several actors waiting indefinitely until their scenes were ready to be shot. For the first few months of filming, he filmed scenes during the daytime and wrote the script at night, resorting to amphetamine injections and wearing protective gloves because he contracted dermatitis in both hands. Overwhelmed, in February 1962, Mankiewicz rehired MacDougall to script several battle scenes (particularly those of Moongate and Actium) and the final 50 remaining pages of the second half.

On January 22, 1962, Taylor and Burton filmed their first scene together. Wanger observed in his journal: "There comes a time during the making of a movie when the actors become the characters they play... It was quiet, and you could almost feel the electricity between Liz and Burton." In February 1962, rumors of the extramarital affair were spreading, so much that Mankiewicz told Wanger in his hotel room: "I have been sitting on a volcano all alone for too long, and I want to give you some facts you ought to know. Liz and Burton are not just playing Antony and Cleopatra."

At the time, Taylor was married to her fourth husband Eddie Fisher—a relationship that also began with an affair as he was married to Debbie Reynolds at the time—and Burton was married to his first wife, Sybil Williams.

▸ Post-Production

Post-production work on Cleopatra had left the film's editorial team with of exposed footage. In Los Angeles, Mankiewicz and his editor Dorothy Spencer prepared a rough cut that ran five hours and 20 minutes. On August 31, 1962, Zanuck wrote to Mankiewicz stating he wanted to see a completed first cut and a progress report no later than the first week of October. On October 13, Mankiewicz flew to Paris to screen a four-and-one-half hour rough cut for Zanuck. According to Zanuck's account, he was shocked after having seen the first cut, and asked "to see the sequences that had been cut and decided some of them should be restored, but I found to my astonishment that no loops had been made for certain eliminated episodes."

Another account stated Zanuck felt the rough cut was "beautifully written, beautifully directed, and beautifully staged", but was dissatisfied with the battle sequences. They finished the screening on Sunday morning, October 14. After the screening was over, Zanuck rejected Mankiewicz's plea to distribute Cleopatra in two separate installments, believing audiences interested in seeing Taylor and Burton together would not attend the first installment. He was further displeased with Cleopatra's dominance over Mark Antony, remarking: "If any woman behaved towards me like Cleopatra treated Antony, I would cut her balls off."

Alternately, DeCuir, who was present after the screening, stated Zanuck asked for the film to be "cut to three hours and fifteen minutes." Zanuck canceled the scheduled meeting for the next day, at which it was planned to discuss the film more in detail and departed from Paris. Meanwhile, Mankiewicz continued the dubbing sessions with Taylor and Burton.

For several days, Zanuck ignored Mankiewicz's calls for another meeting, to which Mankiewicz later learned that Zanuck had hired editor and director Elmo Williams to supervise the completion and final editing of the film.

▸ Music & Score

The music of Cleopatra was scored by Alex North. It was released several times, first as an original album, and later versions were extended. The most popular of these was the Deluxe Edition or 2001 Varèse Sarabande album.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: Won 4 Oscars. 7 wins & 13 nominations total

Awards Won: ★ Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color — Leon Shamroy (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Visual Effects — Emil Kosa Jr. (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — John DeCuir, Sr. (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Jack Martin Smith (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Walter M. Scott (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Boris Juraga (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Herman A. Blumenthal (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Elven Webb (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Hilyard M. Brown (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Ray Moyer (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Maurice Pelling (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color — Paul S. Fox (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Color — Irene Sharaff (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Color — Renié (36th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Color — Vittorio Nino Novarese (36th Academy Awards)

Nominations: ○ Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color (36th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Original Score (36th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Color (36th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Color (36th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Actor (36th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Picture (36th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Film Editing (36th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (36th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Sound (36th Academy Awards)