The most expensive CGI character of all time
There’s a lot of concern over the use of CGI, mainly that arises out of artificial intelligence. But not all CGI ought to be considered the work of the devil. Over the years, there have been several wonderful characters created through the use of digital technology, even though they’re often made at rather exorbitant costs.
Without CGI, we wouldn’t have seen the likes of Ava in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, Smaug in The Hobbit, The Tiger in Life of Pi, the apes in the most recent Planet of the Apes films, nor the Na’vi in James Cameron’s Avatar. Still, the cost of those characters alone comes at a truly excessive production cost.
But right at the top of the pile in terms of the most expensive CGI characters of all time are the controversial trio of Jimmy Hoffa, Russell Bufalino and Frank Sheeran, played respectively by Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro, in Martin Scorsese’s 2019 epic gangster film The Irishman, based on the 2004 Charles Brandt book I Heard You Paint Houses.
The film was considered “unfinished business” by De Niro, and the project had been in circulation for some 13 years prior to the film’s eventual release. However, because of that very delay, Scorsese’s cast ended up being too old to play their characters. As such, the director had to resort to using CGI.
Scorsese contacted Pablo Helman and Industrial Light & Magic to make Pacino, Pesci, and De Niro look like they were in their mid-40s. The initial budget for The Irishman had been set at $159million, but because special CGI technology had to be developed, the eventual cost of the movie was around the $300m mark.
The fact that Scorsese used CGI is somewhat surprising, considering the fact that he’d previously preferred to just use a camera and what’s in front of it. But he justified the technology by claiming, “CGI is really an evolution of make-up, you accept certain norms in make-up, you know he’s not that old, she’s not that young, you accept the illusion.”
De Niro, meanwhile, followed up with, “I am just happy we are at the beginning stages of it being explored, and God knows where we will go and what excited me about it was Pablo [Helman] was doing this thing and wanted to make it state of the art, the best it could be.”
So the fact that a Martin Scorsese movie features the most expensive CGI characters may come as some surprise, especially given his previous insistence on reality. But there you have it, De Niro, Pacino and Pesci – the three legendary actors – all comprise those eye-watering pricey technological innovations.
