The most expensive film of the silent era was "" (1925), costing about $4 million—an astronomical sum in those days at twenty-five times the $160,000 average cost of an MGM feature. It is unclear which sound-era production superseded it as the most expensive film, although this is commonly attributed to "Hell's Angels" (1930), directed by Howard Hughes; the accounts for "Hell's Angels" show it cost $2.8 million, but Hughes publicised it as costing $4 million, selling it to the media as the most expensive film ever made. The first film to seriously challenge the record was "Gone with the Wind" (1939), reported to have cost about $3.9–4.25 million, although sources from the time state that "Ben-Hur" and—erroneously—"Hell's Angels" cost more. "Ben-Hur" was definitively displaced at the top of the chart by "Duel in the Sun" in 1946, meaning "Ben-Hur" may have held the record for 21 years.