4 Things Pulp Fiction taught us about Finances

Recently, I was re-watching the movie Pulp Fiction after 20 years. These days, when watching old movies, I find points on financial topics that I missed in the first showing. Here are 4 financial items I picked up from the movie.

 1)    The Briefcase

We never see what is in the famous briefcase. There are all kinds of theories. The auora that shines when the case is opened, makes me think there are Gold bars in the case. Over the last 20 years since the release of the movie, gold has had a compound annualized return of about 7.2%. While that sounds good, three other classes did better; S&P 500, Oil and Real Estate. A briefcase full of gold would be nice, but I wonder if Marcellus Wallace had any other assets.

 2)    Five Dollar Milkshake

I was always impressed with the scene at Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant where Uma Thurman orders a $5 milkshake.  Vincent Vega (Travolta) has a great line after he tries the milkshake “I don't know if it's worth five dollars but it's pretty f***in' good."  To me it showed, he doesn't care how good the milkshake is, but charging $5 goes against his principles.  It goes against my principles too. Of course he spends $300 on heroin in the previous scene, so not sure about his spending choices.

 3)    20K per week

Pulp Fiction was made for only 8 million dollars. In 1994, it was the first time I had ever seen so many big stars in a low budget film. To accomplish this, actors Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, John Travolta and Sammual Jackson were paid equally, only $20K per week. Travolta worked 7 weeks for $140,000. May seem like a lot, but it is just a drop in the bucket compared to his biggest paycheck of $20M a film.

 4)    Vincent’s Car

The car that Vincent Vega drove was a ‘64 Chevelle Malibu convertible. It was the first year the Malibu was made. Originally it sold for $1,501 in 1964. One in good condition today can go between 35-40K. The actual car in the movie was Tarantino’s and was stolen during filming. Police found the car in 2013.

See if you can find any SmartMoneyMoves in your favorite movie.