"Sausage Party," the animated brainchild of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, raked in $33.6 million on its opening weekend -- a pretty impressive figure, since it's being reported that the film only cost around $19 million to produce. To compare and contrast, Disney Pixar's recent "Finding Nemo" sequel, "Finding Dory," cost $200 million to make, and even Illumination's generic-looking "Secret Life of Pets" had a budget of $75 million. "Sausage Party" isn't the most visually stunning film, but it's pretty darn polished for a budget that basically amounts to pennies.
Rogen and Goldberg had a difficult time getting their R-rated movie about talking hotdogs off the ground, and they eventually turned to Nitrogen Studios, based in Vancouver, Canada. At Nitrogen, "Sausage Party" was directed by Conrad Vernon ("Shrek 2") and Greg Tiernan ("Thomas & Friends"). In an interview with Cartoon Brew, Vernon and Tiernan brag about how low they kept the budget for the film.
At one point, Tiernan says, "We knew damn well that we could deliver a movie that looks like a $150 million movie for a fraction of the cost... It doesn’t have to cost that much money when you’re well organized, you have your mind set on the goal of what you want to do, and you get the job done with a small, determined crew."
However, the comment section under that article tells a different story. Incensed by Tiernan's holier-than-thou tone, many former and current Nitrogen Studios animators commented on how "Sausage Party" actually saved all that money.
"The production costs were kept low because Greg [Tiernan] would demand people work overtime for free," a commenter with the handle "Uncredited Supervisor" wrote. "If you wouldn't work late for free your work would be assigned to someone who would stay late or come in on the weekend. Some artists were even threatened with termination for not staying late to hit a deadline."
A commenter with the handle "Another Uncredited Animator" added, "Almost half the animation team was not credited... You can see the full team on IMDB, which contains 83 people (and I am certain there are some missing). The film's credits, however, contains 47."
Most shocking, however, was a comment by a user called "Uncredited animator," who said, "I worked as an animator in Nitrogen studios on the 'Sausage Party,' all of my shots are in the trailer and I didn't get the screen credit. It was a really stressful atmosphere over there, most of the core team who shaped the animation style and the character's body language, didn't get the screen credit."
A recent report from Variety seemed to confirm that these commenters were real animators that had been employed by Nitrogen, but they still wished to remain anonymous.
Nicole Stinn, Tiernan's wife and co-founder of Nitrogen Studios, has rebuffed the allegations against them, saying, "Our production adhered to all overtime laws and regulations, as well as our contractual obligations with our artists."
Still, as more horror stories from the making of "Sausage Party" flood in, Vernon and Tiernan's claims of being thrifty and efficient seem false and self-congratulatory. It also makes the Disney-inspired ad in which Seth Rogen jokingly tells an animator, "You're fired!" feel a bit awkward.
