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Today’s announcement that Universal Pictures would finance Vigilandia, a film by Paranormal Activity producer Jason Blum and the Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, is worth reconsidering on a philosophical level. Universal, which has spent boatloads of money on films like Battleship, is funding a movie that will cost a couple million dollars. For that, they’ve got Ethan Hawke, and the expertise of Blum and Bay, the director of the megabudget Transformers films. Something is happening here; studios are re-thinking the idea of overspending on risky projects (Warner Bros just unplugged Arthur & Lancelot and Akira) when audiences are turning out for films like The Devil Inside. That no-budget film, acquired by Paramount’s new Insurge division, got about the worst reviews since Plan 9 From Outer Space, and still out-grossed movies made for signficantly more money. This could make a tightening marketplace even tighter, if these found footage no-cost films continue to break the bank. While the Paranormal Activity films and Insidious have been highly profitable crowd pleasers, if studios refocus their attention on these down and dirty films, don’t expect the quality of movie making to get any better in 2012 than it was last year.
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This happened after BLAIR WITCH. Until the found footage films novelty waned and the studios went back to the same old paradigm. Why is it when something hits everyone runs in that direction for about four minutes like their going to catch rainbows in a bucket?
Found footage is not loosing momentum. The public may be sick of it, but there is a lot more coming in the pipeline.
Let’s not get carried away here. This is what Blum does. And Hawke’s a fine actor, but hardly at the top of his box office game. Once they’ve see it, THE DEVIL INSIDE will ultimately turn audiences AWAY from the genre.
Found footage exorcism movies? Yes, without a doubt.
But with the continuing success of a little microbudget franchise called “Paranormal Activity” (which like Paramount’s first seven “Friday the 13th” films), keeps raking in the dough every October — the found footage craze isn’t going to stop. You’ll have knockoffs and obvious losers like “The Fourth Kind”, “Apollo 18″ and “Quarantine” — but even then they eventually break even.
I’d rather see more varied micro-budgeted films hit the multiplex.
I really dislike the sentiment of that last sentence. A movie being inexpensive doesn’t automatically make it bad. That’s the kind of thinking that got Hollywood obsessed with making mega-budget movies in the first place — if you throw more money at it, then it must be better, right? A low-budget movie doesn’t have to be “down and dirty,” especially if the filmmakers know what they’re doing and what their limitations are.
My answer to the title of the article: No.
Agreed, this movie was downright awful.
I think the greatest hope with regard to the microbudget film swing would be that larger budget films find a way to exploit efficiencies and keep their budgets lower. So many recent films in no way “needed” to cost as much as they did (films like Girl With The Dragon and How Do You Know come to mind). It is about time that studios realized that with the decrease in home video revenues, the budgets need to deflate to accomodate. Maybe people who know how to get 90 minutes of film out the door for $1mm can show everyone how to get the most for their money.
Didn’t you guys learn anything from your MONEYBALL screeners? That movie isn’t about baseball.
And I’m sure Blum and Bay and Hawke would trade less money up front for less studio interference and a piece of the back-end.
“Didn’t you guys learn anything from your MONEYBALL screeners? That movie isn’t about baseball.”
Exactly. Eight minutes into MONEYBALL I was thinking, “So, this might as well be a movie about Hollywood.”
The movie is chock full of wisdom on this front — and points out the wasteful excesses and lack of focus in Hollywood left and right.
You guys are 100% right. It’s not about “down and dirty” so much as it is about Moneyball. Smart risk-taking is what’s in vogue.
If there was a single lesson from 2011, it was that the market could bear more mid-range successes. Movies like LIMITLESS, which has made $161m worldwide, at a reported cost of $27m.
Lionsgate, Uni and Paramount are all already competitive in this space. Budgets are tight and schedules are very short, but it will lead to greater diversity of studio-released product, which I suspect we all can embrace.
it’s about time Hollywood woke up. Spending money to make money is as old as rocks.
Tell great stories.
The end.
P.S. Go see A BETTER LIFE.
I’m an un-biased SAG member who only saw it because it was listed first as a “free download”
it’s great.
True,there are many found-footage projects in the pipeline, but hopefully this fad won’t last too long; even if, going forward, they rep a fraction of what the studios do, doubtful they’re going to take over the world or radically change the studio movie paradigm. If nothing else, there have to be Oscar nominees each year, none of which is likely to be a found-footage pic.
Well, at least they’re not making 4 more Transfo- oh. But the Pirates franchise – oops. Studios rethinking economics is nothing new, but let’s be real: Uni spends half a billion dollars on flops. Avatar? Chris Nolan? Harry Potter? Hell, Mission: Impossible even. The list of blockbuster one-offs and blockbuster franchises continues to grow as studios realize where the real money is creating giant, expensive, event films. No one cares about your 100-mil movie if it’s GREEN LANTERN. But turn out a good Batman/Superman (gag, Twilight) and people will go en masse.
Are they going to hire Amy Powell to handle all the marketing to make it a success too?
Geez maybe John Sayles’ time has finally come. Well directed, cheap, money for marketing, great cast. (Pick three)
“That no-budget film, acquired by Paramount’s new Insurge division, got about the worst reviews since Plan 9 From Outer Space.”
Huh? “Plan 9″ is a classic BAD movie, and the numerous ways it goes wrong are definitely entertaining. It’s a cult classic.
“Devil Inside” won’t enjoy the kind of success “Plan 9″ has had. Sure, it’s made more money box-office wise, but people won’t love it. In fact, they’ll be spitting on it once they see it.
There is a difference between “micro” and “modest” budgets.
Hollywood as an industry pendulums to the extreme, at times. Perhaps it would be business-wise to structure a production flow of projects with modest budgets, and then develop a distribution strategy that utilizes new and less expensive advertising and “awareness” (word-of-mouth works when one has a good film out) campaigns….
Studios as usual learn the wrong lessons from everything but perhaps in this case they might finally start to see that you don’t ALWAYS have to spend 200 million on a film. The laugher is that they have to hire new people to start divisions for them as for some reason they don’t know how to make movies cheaply themselves. Unless of course by subcontracting it helps them get around using unions as much.
Temporarily, yes. In the long run, no. If ‘Devil Inside’ is as bad as everyone is claiming, but pulled in that much money opening weekend, of course there’ll be studio copycats. As long as the 18-25 year old males keep plunking down the dollars, they’ll keep churning them out.
I think the reality is that, if you go to a festival, you’ll see micro-budget films at all levels of quality. The technical credits may be a weaker than what you’d expect from a $100 million feature, but not necessarily any weaker than what you’d see in a highly regarded foreign film.
So, the problem isn’t a lack of respectable micro-budget films. The problem is that the distributors are so burned out and glutted that they don’t even give serious attention to micro budget films that do get their two weeks at the Quad Cinema and do get some good reviews from Variety and the New York daily papers. To get well-distributed, a micro budget film needs some combination of truly fabulous reviews, a big star who worked for free and a lot of luck.
Is this really a micro-budget film if it carries the back-end of Blum, Bay, Platinum Dunes, the director and Ethan Hawke?
The problem with this thinking is the idea that Universal can make up for the $200 million dollar failure in the waiting which is BATTLESHIP by cranking out a bunch of cheap $1 million “found footage” movies. That’s hedge fund thinking, not good movie making. Why not make 10 well written $20 million movies instead of one $200 movie? Because the only thing anyone wants in this town is to win the penis-measuring contest.
“if studios refocus their attention on these down and dirty films, don’t expect the quality of movie making to get any better in 2012 than it was last year.”
This statement inherently implies that 2011 was a solid, if not strong or good year for film. It was the opposite. It was a garbage year for films, with the exception of a few. Deadline, the very web site on which the writer is making these outrageous claim, wrote numerous articles about the box office slump in 2011.
This statement implies that throwing tons of money at a film is a successful formula. Good movies come from good scripts. Period. More often than not, inflated budgets are meant to service something altogether different, usually a marketing scheme.
I say more cheaper films! The studio’s would be smart to get into the micro-budget business. They could take more risks, they could make more films. Every once and a while, if they really let the creators, the artist, have their way, one of them will go on to make millions and cause a stir.
The Little Miss Sunshine effect. That’s what they should go for. Chances are, they won’t. They prefer to blow 100′s of millions of dollars on marketing and then, after the thing flops, they stand over the dead fish and scratch their heads and say, “No one wants to see movies anywhere. Oh, well.”
Time for change, man. C’mon, says I!!!!
PEOPLE! STOP GOING TO SEE THESE MOVIES… What is wrong with all of you?
As someone who has made (screenwriter, producer) and/or marketed (Director of Marketing for a worldwide indie distributor, marketer, designer) over 75 low budget films over the course of his career, I have to say that the money is there for an entrepreneurial company that follows the formula:
- give them a great hook.
- make them cheaply.
- make them quickly (don’t develop them to death).
- serve them up everywhere with a few surprises along the way.
These movies are like cheeseburgers. You get one at your local hangout for a reasonable price, they’re satisfying, and… there’s over 17 billion served worldwide.
Ultimately, (we’re not QUITE there yet) There’s more money to be made with films that play on a small screen (ipad, tablet, Kindle Fire) with advertising attached/embedded than there is with playing a movie theatrically. At least the risk will be less.
It might be better if we started thinking of these “little movies” like magazines – targeted at a specific audience, comes out monthly, comes with advertising to lower costs, can be purchsed through a subscription, etc…
After BO numbers take a huge dive this weekend after 6 days of horrible word of mouth and sustained bashing over Twitter, FB, and every movie forum I’ve visited, I’d have to say “No.”
As Samuel Goldwyn once said “There’s nothing as cheap as a hit”. At any budget level, all is forgiven in success. That” success” is directly related to the actual cost of that particular film. It’s all about return on investment, and delivering the film’s promise artistically and financially.
Another multi-vehicle crash at the unholy intersection of Art and Commerce, I suppose.
Is there a business in micro-budget films?
My colleagues wanted to put together a $1MM fund to produce 4 micro-budgets.
Do you think there could be a good overall return?
Could have a good return, could be a bust. Really about the movies that get made and the business model behind the films being produced. Your producers, filmmakers and actors connections in hollywood are going to play into helping them secure distribution theatrically or get VOD deals, and overseas TV rights etc. assuming they have a somewhat viable product… and even getting into festivals to build credibility and critical praise etc. as pre-marketing or in the efforts of securing a distributor…
250K is reasonable budget for microbudget and a good up and coming film-maker shooting digitally on the Red, CanonC300, Alexa or even possibly a 5D can make a decent movie for that in my opinion and actually pay the cast and crew something (probably way less than they’re used to, but something that is better than favors and outright labor theft like most microbudget films) and actually have some proper lights, props, costumes etc. to make it look good. I’d say 4 films for a million is a better gamble than 1/5 of a film for a million that is the current art-house festival model (without a distributor even on board)…. a crazy gamble indy financiers take currently.
Although I’d say you should put together 4 films for 250K each below the line and have another million raised for above the line cast to be used on any of the 4 films dependent on how getting the right cast member might elevate the marketability of your film and the likelihood of getting interest from distributors and tapping into international profit streams, VOD etc. that are usually cast dependent.