Production
Intolerance was a colossal undertaking featuring monumental sets, lavish period costumes, and more than 3,000 extras. Griffith began shooting the film with the Modern Story (originally titled "The Mother and the Law"), whose planning predated The Birth of a Nation, then greatly expanded it to include the other three parallel stories under the theme of intolerance.
Actual costs to produce Intolerance are unknown, but best estimates are close to $2 million (about $46 million today), an astronomical sum in 1916. The film was by far the most expensive made at that point. When the film became a flop at the box-office, the burden was so great that in 1918 Triangle Film Corporation was put up for sale.
A detailed account of the film’s production is told in William M. Drew's 1986 book D.W. Griffith's Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision.
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