Spartacus, A True Epic

Stanley Kubrick had made several films before he made Spartacus (most famously Paths of Glory and The Killing), but he had never made a film at the scale of Spartacus, and no one in Hollywood had.

At the time, it cost $12 million, which made it the most expensive Hollywood film produced up to that point. In fact, the budget was literally higher than what the studio was worth, as Universal sold its assets for $11.25 million to MCA as the movie was being filmed. Combine that with a monstrous 167-day shooting schedule and at least 50,000 extras for some scenes, and you have a film that’s truly epic.