So . . . I know you've all been waiting, and the first reviews of the Spiderman broadway musical are finally out. And they are not good. Despite involving proven talent (Julie Taymor is the director, songs by U2), there seems to be a near-unanimous opinion that the show, well, blows (to which the producers apparently responded that panning it is "uncool"). But what interests me isn't so much that the show is terrible, but also that it is the most expensive broadway show ever produced (current total cost: $65 million). And that got me thinking about other situations where mo' money caused mo' problems. Some examples, counter-examples, and lots of wasted money after the jump.
I hate Isiah Thomas. As a New York Knicks fan, he ruined the team and it's prospects for over a decade. And the Knicks aren't his only disaster - he has a long list of failures (decomplishments?): he bankrupted the Continental Basketball Association, was involved in a high-profile sexual-harrassment lawsuit where we learned the definition of "truck party," and even messed up his possible suicide attempt, and then basically threw his daughter under the bus and let her take the initial heat for his overdose. Not a brilliant man. But was his problem (with the Knicks, at least), too big a budget?
In the book The Wages of Wins, economists David Berri, Martin Schmidt and Stacy Brook looked at Thomas's record and came to the conclusion that it was just that. Because Thomas could make decisions without regard for budget (due to the deep pockets of the idiot owner of the Knicks,silver-spoon-assed James Dolan), he took on bigger, longer contracts that then hobbled the team for years to come. Basically what Berri et al explain is that all NBA general managers take risks, but Thomas could take bigger risks than most. So if the Denver Nuggets take on a bad contract here or there, they are constrained in how many bad decisions they could make; Thomas had no such constraint.
George Lucas also provides an example of this. The original Star Wars trilogy? Brilliant, inventive, well-written. The latter trilogy? I'll charitably say it is less so. One reason for this is that Lucas had budgetary constraints for the first trilogy, and none for the second, forcing him to use the force to come up with a compelling story and characters, and work with what he had. Likewise, when it came to the second trilogy he was creatively unbudgeted, due to CGI, and therefore could create anything he could imagine, without considering if it was a good idea to include it.
There are countless examples of this kind of behaviour. Investment banks with huge capital bases gradually invest in riskier ventures. Hollywood stars with too much money throw it away (as in this very long New Yorker piece on Scientology - fascinating, but it took me over an hour to read). A bigger budget does not mean better results. Look at George W. Bush (a man with a list of decomplishments that exceeds even Thomas's) - a bigger tax base and a freer-spending congress than any previous president, and he pissed it all away.
But is there a true relationship between higher budgets and worse results, or is it just the result of a perceptual bias? After all, it makes a much better narrative for an institution or individual with a big budget to fail than for either a big budget/success or small budget/failure scenario (the last, small budget/success, also makes for a compelling narrative). So maybe we just notice these situations a little more, remember them a little more, and therefore create this correlation in our own minds.
For every example of overspending leading to failure (e.g. Knicks) there are counter-examples of the opposite (e.g. Yankees, Red Sox). Waterworld was the most expensive movie ever made (at the time) and a failure (or at least is perceived to be; it actually grossed $264 million worldwide and had a budget of $175 million); Titanic and Avatar were both the most expensive movies ever made at their resepective times, and both were huge blockbusters. And there are Hollywood stars who don't spend their millions combating Xenu but rather donate to noble causes.
But I can't shake the feeling that on average, when budgets are not constrained, there is a laziness that occurs. That you don't have to work as hard when you don't have to work with less, and come up with creative solutions to problems. I don't think it's a linear relationship, that with every additional dollar in the budget you are reducing your probability of success, but I do think that there is value in not relying on the cash.
Just look at this blog - if I were paid a million dollars a post, it could never be as good. Of course, I'm always open to an experiment to test it, if anyone wants to pony up the dough.
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