Star Wars Episode VII Expected to Cost Almost $200m

The next Star Wars movie is going to have the biggest budget of the franchise to date, according to Disney chairman Alan Horn.

Horn let slip that the budget for Star Wars Episode VII would be somewhere north of the $175m (£104m, €127m) region – but the studio has yet to give the producers a proper budget.

Horn said: "We don't even have the completed budget yet but these large tentpole movies are on the expensive side, in the neighbourhood of $175-$200m, that kind of a number."

Horn told Bloomberg that the extravagant budget was partly to "repay" fans of the intergalactic space series.

"We need to give the audience, just as we did with Harry Potter, just as we did with any of the Avengers movies, a full meal in return for their affection and devotion and love for these properties.

"We don't give budgets out. But it will be a big, tentpole movie budget."

The new Star Wars, scheduled for a December 2015 release, will be the first since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2010 and the rights to the franchise with it.

The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, were the most expensive of the series to make, costing around $115m each.

Disney's two biggest film budgets were for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($300m) and Tangled ($260m).