If you won 20 million dollars in the lottery....

STYLZ

STYLZ

Well-known member
If you won 20 million dollars in the lottery....how much of it would you invest in creating your own feature length movie?
 
The irony is that when you have 20 million dollars, it's pretty easy to get someone to loan you another 20.
 
Unless it's a for a purely vanity project with the express knowledge it will never, ever turn a cent and I'm doing it entirely for the love of it and no other reason, and want the complete freedom to do whatever I want . . . none.
 
Well, after I spent a month at the Bunny Ranch in Nevada, upgraded my camera, support, post gear and bought a full set of Zeiss Master Prime lenses (Probably a horrible business decision, but I just WANT them) I would probably spend 10% of the total on making some features. I have, or am involved with, 4 scripts/projects that could be made pretty well on $250K budgets. In this fantasy, blowing $2 million making 4 movies over a couple of years would be fun, might be advantageous tax wise and, maybe, just maybe, make some money back.
 
If I won 20 million dollars (after tax)... Id spend $3million - which would be four films with a $1.4 million budget each (total 5.6 mill) with included local offsets (Australia). And Id probably take 8 years to complete them all, spending much of my time getting scripts right and just in development. I'd expect at least return enough to create a 5th or enough interest in the quality of what I do, to just keep doing it.

Im sorry, but in ten years if I were to get hit by a terminal disease and lay there thinking I wish I did... where would I be?

I won't go to into detail what Id do with the rest, charity could expect at least 5, with some smart investment of the balance.
 
It would be difficult to make a feature film after I sold nearly every last bit of work equipment, and being retired with $20mil, I sure as hell wouldn't waste a dime of it on something as increasingly risky as a feature film.

I'd still make kick-ass home movies traveling the world homeschooling our kids
 
A better question might be to ask a group of people who are passionate about making indie films to begin with... a lot of people here aren't. So, my answer is $0 but that's because I have no real desire to begin with. Though if I *did*.... I tend to be passionate about whatever I do... so I'd be tempted to dump a LOT of money into it... maybe even the majority...

Though realistically, and after giving it some thought, I would be smart and scale way back. I think you can do a lot with a little, and giving yourself too much is temptation to be wasteful. I'd set a 3 million dollar maximum budget including my salary for that time frame, advertising, and of course cast/crew/props/gear/travel/etc. And I'd TRY to do it for less. WAY less.

Why, did you win the lottery or something?
 
filmguy123 said:
A better question might be to ask a group of people who are passionate about making indie films to begin with... a lot of people here aren't.
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Agreed. It's a bit like asking a plumber what sort of house he would design and build if he had a lot of money. He'd just be thankful he doesn't have to do any more plumbing and wouldn't want to build any houses at all.
 
filmguy123 said:
A better question might be to ask a group of people who are passionate about making indie films to begin with... a lot of people here aren't. So, my answer is $0 but that's because I have no real desire to begin with. Though if I *did*.... I tend to be passionate about whatever I do... so I'd be tempted to dump a LOT of money into it... maybe even the majority...

Though realistically, and after giving it some thought, I would be smart and scale way back. I think you can do a lot with a little, and giving yourself too much is temptation to be wasteful. I'd set a 3 million dollar maximum budget including my salary for that time frame, advertising, and of course cast/crew/props/gear/travel/etc. And I'd TRY to do it for less. WAY less.

Why, did you win the lottery or something?
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No, was just a question that crossed my mind. Found myself curious what others would do. I wouldn't spend more than a million. Probably try to keep it more around 200k.
 
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STYLZ said:
No, was just a questioned that crossed my mind. Found myself curious what others would do. I wouldn't spend more than a million. Probably try to keep it more around 200k.
Click to expand...

I would spend some money on a couple of B-list actors. One, it would be fun to work with them and two it attracts viewers to have some known actors in your movie. Obviously you can't afford A-listers on a small budget but there's some great B-list actors that could really add some interesting performances to your production.
 
Real estate income property. 4plexes and apartment buildings invested in strategic places.

@ $20 million invested, it is easy to assume a net income of over $1mill a year - for the rest of your life. Spend as you please.
 
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