Paranormal Activity v. The Return ?

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

Veteran
Why do you think Paranormal Activity did so well (~$200M box office so far), on such a small budget ($15,000), whereas The Return (Sarah Michelle Gellar) did so poorly on a multimillion dollar budget?
Trying to solve that riddle as I think of a supernatural thriller story to write and indie produce.
randall

 
Hype and marketing?...And word of mouth. I finally saw Paranormal on cable. At first I was like, what they hell is this crap!? But the movie slowly starts to work on you and becomes genuinely unsettling by the end. I don't think it's a great film or anything, but if it got to me, for more impressionable viewers I imagine it was pretty darn scary.
 
It's a miracle of marketing, basically. And since the movie cost the studio NOTHING( like $300K to purchase ), there was no pressure to make money back. So they were allowed to build the marketing campaign a piece at a time, spending more and more money as warranted. I think that's the big thing.

Movie marketing is such a ****ing waste, it's unreal how much money gets thrown down the toilet plastering every square inch of the world with ****ing posters and tv ads, etc.

Frankly, I think Hollywood would do pretty well reducing budgets to very low levels, and letting movies stretch out as the demand warrants. Low risk, potential high reward. Seems like a no brainer.

Of course, in Hollywood, you'd never be able to make PA for $300K. The unions and the way things work, just won't allow for that to happen. Hell, it would be $300K in lawyers to sign the contracts.
 
Mark Harris said:
It's a miracle of marketing, basically. And since the movie cost the studio NOTHING( like $300K to purchase ), there was no pressure to make money back. So they were allowed to build the marketing campaign a piece at a time, spending more and more money as warranted. I think that's the big thing.

Movie marketing is such a poo pooing waste, it's unreal how much money gets thrown down the toilet plastering every square inch of the world with poo pooing posters and tv ads, etc.

Frankly, I think Hollywood would do pretty well reducing budgets to very low levels, and letting movies stretch out as the demand warrants. Low risk, potential high reward. Seems like a no brainer.

Of course, in Hollywood, you'd never be able to make PA for $300K. The unions and the way things work, just won't allow for that to happen. Hell, it would be $300K in lawyers to sign the contracts.
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Budgets really are getting out of control. I noted in another thread that Dinner For Shmucks cost 69 million. The Other Guys cost 100 million! While they have stars, neither film is that effects driven. Scott Pilgrim was 60 million, and while it has its share of effects, they weren't effects that needed to meet a high threshold of reality. Even the fact that Inception cost 160 million is kind of nuts.
 
Batutta said:
Budgets really are getting out of control. I noted in another thread that Dinner For Shmucks cost 69 million. The Other Guys cost 100 million! While they have stars, neither film is that effects driven. Scott Pilgrim was 60 million, and while it has its share of effects, they weren't effects that needed to meet a high threshold of reality. Even the fact that Inception cost 160 million is kind of nuts.
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And not surprisingly, the part of PA that I liked the least was the obviously EFX part the studio dill-tards tacked on.

I think PA is pretty flawed, and overall not that great, but the parts about it that were great worked on your imagination, played with ideas. You don't need to show the poo pooing monster in full 4K detail to scare the Be-Jesus out of people.

This is even the track we're taking with my little film. I wrote an article recently on NEW BREED, about our reasoning to make the movie for an amount of money we could afford to lose. Same thing. No pressure. We can try radical attention-getting schemes, etc. and let it grow.
 
PA was successfully marketed as a unique and terrifying theatrical event, rather than just another horror movie. the takeaway for me is to remember that people do not buy movies, they buy the promise of an experience. Paramount sold an experience. Whether or not it delivered is another matter.
 
Zak Forsman said:
PA was successfully marketed as a unique and terrifying theatrical event, rather than just another horror movie. the takeaway for me is to remember that people do not buy movies, they buy the promise of an experience. Paramount sold an experience. Whether or not it delivered is another matter.
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I think George Lucas said to make a hit movie you just have to promise a certain emotional experience and then deliver. Deliver more than one type of emotional experience and you have a blockbuster. A little simplistic, but the delivery is the hard part.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
Why do you think Paranormal Activity did so well (~$200M box office so far), on such a small budget ($15,000), whereas The Return (Sarah Michelle Gellar) did so poorly on a multimillion dollar budget?
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My two cents - sure the marketing played a part in it...but mainly because Paranormal Activity had something unique to sell, whereas 'The Return' couldn't really be distinguished from every other 15 million dollar movie out there. I would say that PA was successful not in spite of it's low budget, but because of its low budget.

Pretty much the same thing Zak was getting at - PA was marketed as the promise of an experience, not just another movie.
But that was only possible because of the nature of the film itself.

I've posted this before - but I'll post it again, I think it's fitting in this context:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/the-dead-zone-o.html
 
Batutta said:
I think George Lucas said to make a hit movie you just have to promise a certain emotional experience and then deliver. Deliver more than one type of emotional experience and you have a blockbuster. A little simplistic, but the delivery is the hard part.
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George Lucas said that?

Maybe he was ironic?
 
Mark Harris said:
...You don't need to show the poo pooing monster in full 4K detail to scare the Be-Jesus out of people...
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One of the best things that happened in Spielberg's early career was having an animatronic shark that didn't work well. Bruce spent a lot more time at the bottom of the drink than he did in front of the cameras and the rest is history.
 
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