Cinema With a budget of nearly 600 million, this film is the third most expensive in history and concluded a cult science fiction saga With a budget of nearly 600 million, this film is the third most expensive in history and concluded a cult science fiction saga By Quentin Couprie 21 October 2025 The price tag could fund a fleet, yet the studio’s payday barely registers. Why do the ledgers hint at thin profits, hidden rebates and a sprint to the finish? Production records in the UK put Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker at £450.2 million before reliefs, hinting at the industrial scale behind the saga’s finale. Forbes’ deep dive traces how tax incentives trimmed the spend, how a tighter post-production window reshaped the workflow, and why Hollywood keeps the real math opaque. Stack it against the priciest tentpoles and a billion-plus gross suddenly looks modest, with Disney’s take estimated at under 50 million after splits. Nearly five decades after George Lucas set this universe in motion, the ledger closes on a saga that rewrote the business of sci-fi. Closing the Skywalker saga with a colossal budget When Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker reached theaters, it served as the emotional finale to a story spanning decades. With a budget nearing $600 million, it became the third most expensive film ever made. The scale of this investment reflected the high stakes of concluding George Lucas’ saga that began almost 50 years earlier. Source: https://3dvf.com/en/with-a-budget-of-nearly-600-million-this-film-is-the-third-most-expensive-in-history-and-concluded-a-cult-science-fiction-saga/