Guinness World Records’ Most Expensive Movie Prop Ever Doubled as a Set

The Big Picture

• Movie props can be more than just handheld objects and can include entire sets like the pirate ship in the film Pirates.
• The pirate ship in Pirates cost $8 million to construct and is considered the most expensive movie prop ever made.
• Despite the film’s failure, the construction of the ship, named Neptune, is highly praised for its incredible detail and craftsmanship.

Most of the time, when you think of a movie prop, you often think of objects that characters on screen can hold. Lightsabers, batarangs, you get the idea. That said, movie props basically constitute anything that you see on screen. These objects are made and used to help immerse audiences in the world that is being presented on-screen, so the better constructed they are, the more likely viewers will buy what they’re watching. Sometimes, these tools aren’t just small handheld devices. They can be cars, structures, and in some cases, constitute entire sets. Such is the case with Roman Polanski‘s 1986 film, Pirates, in which an entire pirate ship was built.

This pirate ship wasn’t just built and placed in the background of various shots, it doubled as an entire set. That’s right, crew members and actors wouldn’t just be looking at this thing from off in the distance. They would have to actually interact with it, run around on it, perform on it, and make it look good enough to convince audiences of the pirate world that they were watching on screen. We ought to hand it to them because this ship looks pretty incredible. Like most great props, this ship didn’t come cheap. It’s reported that the ship cost $8 million to construct, with additional funds pushing it towards $10 million so that it could double as a sound stage. That would make Polanski’s prized pirate ship the most expensive movie prop ever made. The movie ended up being a box office bomb, landing only $1.6 million on a $40 million budget. So yeah, even if they went the cheap route with the replica pirate ship, this movie had a steep financial mountain to climb.

Why Is ‘Pirates’ Such a Disappointing Movie?

If you’re unfamiliar with Pirates, you’re in luck. This critical failure and gargantuan box office bomb was released in the summer of 1986, a time that usually does big and fun action adventure movies well… but not this one. The film stars Walter Matthau as Captain Red and Cris Campion as Frog, two pirates who set out onto the seven seas in search of adventure. It’s not the most plot-heavy movie of all time, but similarly, its filmmaker seemed uninterested in doing anything all that exciting, Pirates is similarly just a bit boring. That doesn’t mean that it’s without its merits though.

Matthau really gives this movie his all and is a bright spot in an otherwise apathetic experience. Polanski also didn’t seem to have the best mindset going into this film, aside from probably just wanting to make a pirate movie. He had spent the years leading up to this making one incredibly serious movie after the next. We’re talking about classics like Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, and Tess, so you can imagine that he probably wanted to take a break from this dramatic run that he was on by having a bit of fun. Pirates was made in the wake of Polanski escaping the US to avoid sentencing for his confessed sexual assault of a minor.

The Galleon in ‘Pirates’ Is the Most Expensive Prop Ever Made for a Movie

Not only did Polanski continue to make movies right after his monstrous acts had come to light, but investors and producers continued to fund the most outrageous parts of movies that never sounded promising to begin with. Demanding that $10 million be spent on building an entire pirate ship that doubled as a sound stage probably shouldn’t have been a greenlit request. Roman Polanski wasn’t even the kind of filmmaker who worked in this wheelhouse. $10 million for a movie prop in the mid-1980s is an astronomical sum of money. You don’t see Ari Aster out here demanding Avatar bucks to make a tree house! At least Ari Aster is properly rated.

You have to hand it to the artists who constructed the ship in Pirates, though. As already stated, the ship, otherwise known as a galleon, was constructed for $8 million, and then an additional $2 million was added on to convert the prop into a sound stage for actors and crew to work on. In spending all of this money, the ship, named Neptune, allegedly has a diesel-powered motor, fully functioning sails, and rigging, actual galleon architecture, and was even topped off with a giant Neptune figurehead. Needless to say, it looks incredible and is easily the best thing about the movie that it’s in. If only the rest of the movie was given the same level of effort that was put into the ship it takes place on. These days, the galleon sits in Genoa, a city in Italy’s Liguria region, and is available for tourists to come and look at. Instead of watching this boring film from one of cinema’s most overrated and reviled filmmakers, just buy a ticket to Italy and go see this beast of a ship. That’s an easy alternative… right?

Roger Ebert Panned the Movie But Praised the Construction of Neptune

Unfortunately, the effort put into creating Neptune did not translate into much of a great movie. Even Roger Ebert agreed about the film’s shortcomings, stating in his review, “Pirates proves, if nothing else, that Matthau is not an action star and that Polanski is not an action director.” He went on to rave about Neptune, though, by saying, “The real star of the movie is the Neptune, the full-size, functional galleon that was constructed as a set for most of the scenes. It’s one of the finest sailing ships I’ve ever seen in a movie, but I couldn’t see much of it, because Polanski steadfastly refuses to give us blood-stirring shots of the Neptune plowing through the waves. He begins with a real ship, then treats it like a studio set.” Ebert does exaggerate the way that Polanski shoots Neptune. If nothing else, this filmmaker seems to know how to shoot the galleon that his movie takes place on. In the end, he rewarded Polanski’s film one star. A well-deserved rating.

Pirates is proof that even bad movies can have incredible artistry behind them. It’s an understatement to call Neptune an achievement, but it is a mind-blowing structure nonetheless. If only it was built for a better movie. Let’s hope that expensive movie props keep being made, as they always better immerse audiences into the worlds that we’re being transported to. More than that, let’s hope that the right filmmakers get their hands on the projects that these props are made for.

Pirates is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

Watch on Prime Video