YMMV / War and Peace (1966)

• Common Knowledge:
  • An oft-repeated statistic is that the Battle of Borodino sequence film had a total of 120,000 extras, something director Sergei Bondarchuk repeatedly and emphatically denied as an exaggeration. The actual number is closer to 12,000.
  • American press often labeled the film the most expensive ever made, but this is untrue. While the official figures put out by the Soviet government said that it cost $100 million (approximately $799 million in 2021) was oft repeated in the American press upon the film's release in the US, the protocols of the USSR's State Cinema Committee from the time reveal that its approved budget was 8.5 million ruble, of which 2.51M were to be paid to the military for its services. The producers' financial statements set their total expenditures on "War and Peace" to have been 8,291,712 ruble after its completion in August 1967. Though a huge sum in Soviet terms, it was equal to $9,213,013 by the contemporary exchange rate and, considering ruble inflation, about 2 billion ruble in 2012 (~$67 million under the 2012 rate).

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