I'm a total sucker for "The Making Of" books that accompany any big movie, so of course I picked up The Making of King Kong.

It's kind of frightening.

One of the best books I ever read on the film industry was Joe Queenan's The Unkindest Cut: How A Hatchet-Man Critic Made His Own $7,000 Movie And Put It All On His Credit Card. Irritated by Robert Rodriguez's repeated (and false*) claim to have made El Mariachi for $7,000, Queenan vowed to make his own movie for $6,998.

It was his White Whale.

If you've ever looked at the budget for a film and wondered, "How the hell did they spend $20 million on that?" The Unkindest Cut answers it for you in excruciating detail, showing you how a very stingy man eventually wound up pouring $67,000 of his own money into a movie that was shown only once.

Making even the cheapest movie is like getting nibbled to death by ducks, if you ever want the faintest hope of getting it shown at Sundance. Sure, the actors will work for free, but you still need to re-record their lines in a studio if you don't want a film with car horns in the background. And you need to purchase expensive film. And rent lighting equipment. And you'll want to spend a few bucks for some cheap special effects, of course. You'll need permits for location shooting, if you're not just going to try to sneak in a shoot whenever, and don't forget the time and effort involved in getting these ten or so people together for free, on the same day, with the same script. And, yes, catering, since people will act for free but dammit, they expect at least donuts.

Oh, and retakes. Don't forget you'll have to shoot some scenes twice! (Three times? Forget it, we can't afford the celluloid!)

Joe Queenan tried to make the cheapest movie he could find, and still he wound up remortgaging his home to make… Well, nothing. It wasn't even a good film. Yet every time he turned around, there was just one more expense that, once paid, would change this film from "total crap" to "long-shot Cannes material."

The era of digital cameras helps with this somewhat, of course — but Unkindest Cut was a sobering look at how much it takes to make a crappy, unwatchable film, let alone a film that people would want to see.

The Making of King Kong, however, shows the other side.

King Kong cost a massive $207 million dollars to make — no, you read that right, $207 million — and even by Hollywood standards, that's a lot of money. If you're an average person, that's more than you and your entire group of friends will earn in your lifetime. Including that guy who's sort of creepy, but nobody has the heart not to invite him.

The book presents it all as a triumph, of course, but what got me was the tin cans. Peter Jackson lovingly recreated 1930s New York down to the most scrupulous detail, sparing no expense to replicate the true Depression-era NYC. "Every shop window has actual merchandise," they gush. "We made several tin cans, and then the art department created labels for each can. It was nothing but gluing cans around here for weeks!"

I've seen the movie.

I don't even remember any cans in it.

Likewise, you'll hear about the state-of-the-art steam making machine that hissed steam up from under manholes at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars, and the time and expense involved in finding the original plans for the Curtiss Helldiver biplanes (which weren't in the Smithsonian, and had to be procured "at great expense" from the American National Archives), and the eight set-dressers who worked for the better part of a year doing nothing but putting up lampposts and shop awnings….

…And we're not even at Skull Island yet. And all I can wonder is, how much money got spent to build a set that I remember largely as a diner, a theater, and a gigantic ape smashing a wall?

If I were a producer and my budget was on the line, I'd be having a talk with Mister Jackson. "Look. Pete," I'd say carefully. "I'm sure it'll be a great movie. But if I spend $150,000 on tin cans that don't even get shown in close-up, is that going to make the money an extra $150,000 at the box office?"

I loved the attention to detail in Lord of the Rings, which needed the hyper-attention to create a fantasy world wholesale. But this is New York, which we all know at least from other movies… And it's big overkill. You're spending incoherent amounts of money on things that nobody will notice, or even pay attention to. The camera's not even on these hundred-grand cans long enough to register subliminally.

They'll spend hours looking at the walls in Return of the King because that's a world they've never seen before. But this is a city from a generation or two ago. It's not nearly as eye-catching.

I'll get through the rest of the book, of course, but now I don't wonder why $207 million was spent. What I wonder is whether the movie would have been one whit less visually impressive for $190 million. And where that sweet spot that lays between "lavish overkill that looks gorgeous at bank-raping expense" and "cheap fake set" lies.

* - The movie was in fact shot for $7,000, but there was another $30,000 or so spent to re-record the dialogue, which was so faint and scratchy that the movie couldn't be shown in a movie theater.

(Tell me I'm full of it)