Tuesday 26 February 2013

1978: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - SAGA OF A STAR WORLD SHOOTING BUDGET

Most of the things posted on STARLOGGED come from my own personal collection, accumulated over decades of buying things I don't really need... but would be cool to have.

These aren't one of them.  I've shamelessly purloined them from the excellent Galactica.tv site (go check it out!).  I saw these original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA budget sheets (from special effects supremo John Dykstra no less) online a while ago and - as a TV guy myself - found them fascinating.  Then.. I forgot where I found them.  They're pretty much buried on that site... which is why I've posted them here as well.

This budget, for Saga of a Star World (aka Battlestar Galactica: The Movie) was drawn-up in late March 1978, with shooting already underway.  The shoot was not a particularly happy one and director Richard Colla was shown the door, after disagreements with Larson, mid-shoot.  Production was shut-down (presumably extending the estimated 27 days shooting on the Universal lot) whilst his uncredited (a source of friction later) replacement, Alan J. Levi (already booked to shoot the upcoming Gun On Ice Planet Zero two-parter) acclimatised to the project.  Budgets always tend to escalate as shooting gets underway and new (and unforeseen) costs begin to present themselves.  This would be especially true for an ambitious project like this.  Dykstra himself has complained in interviews that script revisions were being made AFTER his team had already completed shots, forcing them to go back and rework them, something that was bound to eat into the cash.

Some highlights include:
- Universal budgeted the shoot at just over $7 million.
- Shooting began on 8 March and was due to wrap on 17 April 1978.  As an aside, the finished theatrical edit was released in Canadian movie theatres on 7 July 1978.
- The budget is dated March 24 and Richard Colla is still listed as Director.  This means he was dismissed after the 24th.
- Several days location work were planned (2 days local and 2 days distance).  Presumably these refer to the Caprica City exteriors (at, if memory serves, Long Beach) and the surface of Carillon (the California Desert) which didn't involve any of the principal cast.
- Richard Colla was due $49,500 to direct.
- Glen Larson received $33,500 for writing.
- Lorne Greene received $65,000 for playing Adama, more than double what Richard Hatch received ($30,000) to play Apollo (still Skyler on this paperwork).  Dirk Benedict, despite emerging as the show's star, received a relatively paltry $22,000.  Jane Seymour, still listed as Lyra, received $40,000 for was supposed to be a one-shot appearance.
- Day 19 of shooting was scheduled to need over 100 extras, budgeted at over $9,000 for the day.


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