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When you make a pair of films that gross about $740million domestically, studios start to think that you’ve got your shit together and start giving you oodles of money.  Christopher Nolan‘s next film, Inception, has just been budgeted at a whopping $200 million, a figure of note considering that The Dark Knight cost a meager $185 million to make.

The mysterious project is described as a modern day science fiction piece that will have something to do with the inside of the human mind and is aiming for a July 16, 2010 release.  While little is known about the plot or characters, /Film is reporting that some pretty significant sets will be built in Canada and that Nolan did some extensive scouting of locations.

With so much unknown, one might wonder why Nolan need so much cash – but I’ve got an idea on that.  Paying salaries.  Check out the list of people involved:

• Christopher Nolan (You can bet he’ll be well payed)
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt
• Ken Watanabe
• Marion Cotillard
• Ellen Page
• Tom Hardy
• Cillian Murphy
• Michael Caine

With a massive cast of A-level people and a great deal of construction work to be done up in Canada, that $200mil might not last all that long.  Plus, whenever you consider science fiction, you’ve got to figure some amount of CG will be involved, though it doesn’t have to be spaceships and could be, you know, mental stuff.  More as it comes.  Hit up /Film for a little more discussion on the characters.  Additionally, I’d say putting $200 million into this project is a bad idea considering for it to be successful it has to make like $250 million which isn’t anything to sneeze at.  Can Nolan do it again without the Caped Crusader?

Is $200 million too much?