Razing Money

Everyone says producer Joel Silver is extravagant, but just look at how little he spent to blow things up in Lethal Weapon 3. His crew first alit on the 68-year-old Soreno Hotel of St. Petersburg, Fla.; because it had already been slated for demolition, Silver didn't have to pay to film a scene of it being blown sky-high. Next up, another landmark, the 33-year-old Orlando City Hall, which was purchased for $50,000 and dynamited just a few feet from the new City Hall. Finally, the crew found a vacant Lancaster, Calif., housing tract, another victim of the S&L crisis. For a mere $25,000, the filmmakers set fire to nearly a dozen of the tract's 54 homes. So for three of the movie's major destruction scenes, Silver paid a total of $75,000, an amount Lethal Weapon 3 probably made back in its first hour of release.