How many people does it really take to make a blockbuster?

If you’re one of those people who stays in your seat in the theater to watch the credits at the end of a movie, you know that making movies is a labor-intensive business.

Although the tightly packed roster of staff rushes by very quickly, it usually takes more than five minutes before the curtain finally falls on the blockbuster. The credits are a spectacle that can turn even the most mundane movie into a grand undertaking. Like most things in Hollywood, it is partly a work of magic.

A film’s credits typically thank everyone from the director and actors to caterers, chauffeurs and executive assistants, as well as an army of people who don’t even work for the studio. Special effects teams at visual effects contractors are usually assigned separately to films that require heavy post-production work. This skews the picture of how many people it actually takes to make a film, but a little detective work brings it to light.

Studios rarely disclose the number of people on the crews of films shot in the United States, as they are part of their total headcount, and there is no regulatory obligation to list the personnel on each picture. However, this is not the case for films made in the UK.

As we’ve previously reported, studios are filming in the UK to take advantage of the Audio Visual Expense Credit (AVEC), which gives them a cash refund of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country.

To qualify for reimbursement, at least 10% of production costs must be attributable to UK operations. To demonstrate this to the government, the studios created a separate film production company (FPC) in the UK for each film they made there.

Conditions of the refund procedure state that each FPC should “be responsible for the pre-production, principal photography and post-production of the film, as well as the delivery of the completed film.” Studios are not allowed to hide other companies’ costs, as the terms and conditions also state that “there can only be one FPC per film.”

The companies have code names so they don’t attract attention from fans when applying for permits to film on location. They must also file annual financial reports that reveal everything from the film’s cost and reimbursement levels to staff numbers, salaries and even pension contributions paid to staff. However, finding out the number of crew that worked on a film is not as simple as looking at the financial statements.

As a Disney spokesperson explained, “The number of employees reported in the financial statements represents an average for the period and is not a true reflection of actual positions. For example, during production (usually 2-3 months), we typically expect the number of employees to increase sharply while the number of employees on both sides of production will be low, thereby skewing the average number of employees for the year.”

In short, when movies are made, the studio’s workforce spikes and then plummets as soon as filming wraps as they work on short-term contracts. This is reflected in the studio’s documents, which state that given “the nature of film production, the majority of employees reported were hired under contracts that expired after the completion of production.”

This sharp decline lowers the annual average shown in the financial statements. Accordingly, to find out how many people worked on the filming itself, the studio would need to disclose its headcount during production, rather than as an average for the entire year. This information is available if you know where to look.

Any UK company with more than 250 employees is required by law to disclose the pay gap between men and women, the percentage of women in its workforce and, crucially, its total headcount. This data is collected on 5 April rather than on average, as this is the last day of the UK tax year. If a production company employs more than 250 people and is filming on that day, you can find out how many people are on its crew. This is in stark contrast to the average staff size.

When did the reshoots take place? DisappointedDisney’s modern take on the tale, he reported that he had 195 employees on his books, while his financial statements showed that there were an average of only 22 during filming.

The same goes for Artemis FowlKenneth Branagh’s 2020 adventure film about a 12-year-old criminal mastermind was originally intended for theaters but went straight to the Disney+ streaming platform due to the pandemic. When filming began on April 5, 2018, Disney said it had 393 employees working on it, while documents from that date show it had an average of 144 employees on its books during that period.

The chart below shows the number of employees of companies producing different types of products: from Star wars And Marvel from films to live-action remakes for streaming and the silver screen. It shows that each had an average of 2,165 employees, peaking at 4,478 in 2021 when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness filmed. Its financial records listed only 381 production company employees during the period when filming took place, due to a sharp reduction in staff numbers after principal photography wrapped.

At the other end of the spectrum, only 626 employees worked on the project. Solo: A Star Wars StoryApril 5, 2017, when the first stage of filming was underway. Just a couple of months later, directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were abruptly replaced by Oscar winner Ron Howard, who reportedly carried out extensive reshoots. Ultimately, Disney reported that “the final cost was higher than the agreed upon budget,” although this was not necessarily due to personnel costs.

A Disney spokesman added that staff numbers and costs “do not reflect the self-employed individuals we work with on our films, nor those who are not UK tax resident (usually on-screen and behind-the-scenes).”

If a production company employed highly paid employees such as actors and directors, taxes would have to be deducted from their salaries in the UK. To get around this problem, people with high incomes usually set up a company in their home countries and then sign a contract with a British production company, agreeing to provide their services to them.

As a result of this completely legal maneuver, high-income individuals provide their services to the film production company without having to register on its books as employees, which would result in taxes being deducted from their wages. This also means that their fee is part of the production company’s overall expenses, but is not reflected in personnel costs.

This explains why the total staff salary Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness made $24.2 million (£17.6 million), although main star Benedict Cumberbatch was alone as reported paid $7.5 million.

While the highest paid employees make up a significant portion of the film’s payroll, they only make up a small percentage of the staff, so their omission from the count shouldn’t significantly impact the total number of employees. They cast a powerful spell.

The British Film Institute’s latest screen business report shows that between 2017 and 2019, financial incentives for studios brought a record return on investment of $17.7bn (£13.5bn) to the UK economy and created more jobs places than ever before.

In 2019 it created 37,685 jobs in London and 7,775 across the rest of the UK. The report added that when the wider impact of the film content value chain is taken into account, 49,845 jobs were created in London in 2019, compared to 19,085 in the rest of the UK. This is truly a magic touch.