Intolerance was a colossal undertaking featuring monumental sets, lavish period costumes, and more than 3,000 extras.
The lot on Sunset Boulevard featured a Babylon set with 300-foot (91 m) walls as well as streets of Judea and medieval France.
The extras were reported to have been paid a total of $12,000 a day (equivalent to $282,000 in 2019).
Griffith began shooting the film with the Modern Story (originally titled "The Mother and the Law"), whose planning predated the great commercial success of The Birth of a Nation.
He then greatly expanded it to include the other three parallel stories under the theme of intolerance.
Three hundred thousand feet of film were shot.

The total cost of producing Intolerance was reported to be close to $2 million including $250,000 for the Belshazzar feast scene alone, an astronomical sum in 1916, but accounts for the film show the exact cost to be $385,906.77 (equivalent to $9,067,000 in 2019).
A third of the budget went into making the Babylonian segments of the film.

Griffith financed most of the film, which contributed to his financial ruin for the rest of his life.
Intolerance was a colossal undertaking featuring monumental sets, lavish period costumes, and more than 3,000 extras. The lot on Sunset Boulevard featured a Babylon set with 300-foot (91 m) walls as well as streets of Judea and medieval France. The extras were reported to have been paid a total of $12,000 a day (equivalent to $282,000 in 2019). Griffith began shooting the film with the Modern Story (originally titled "The Mother and the Law"), whose planning predated the great commercial success of The Birth of a Nation. He then greatly expanded it to include the other three parallel stories under the theme of intolerance. Three hundred thousand feet of film were shot.
The total cost of producing Intolerance was reported to be close to $2 million including $250,000 for the Belshazzar feast scene alone, an astronomical sum in 1916, but accounts for the film show the exact cost to be $385,906.77 (equivalent to $9,067,000 in 2019). A third of the budget went into making the Babylonian segments of the film.
Griffith financed most of the film, which contributed to his financial ruin for the rest of his life.
Intolerance (film)