Successful films under $5 million?

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Mickey Munday

Well-known member
what films under the $3 million dollar production budget have done well and were actually pretty good in your opinion?
 
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I believe "Once" was shot for about $100k and did over $10 million at the theaters. Plus won an Academy Award for best song. Actually, the sound track might have done more business than the movie.

Napoleon Dynamite was shot for $400k and did $44 million at the box office.
 
most early Kevin Smith films? not sure of actual costs, but Clerks couldn't have cost more than a few bucks and a weekend...and was a huge success (video sales were huge too)
 
5 million is a LOT of money....I would re-phrase that question for successful films produced under a million.

You'll get many many examples of successful films for under 5 mil.

Blair Witch Project....under fifty thousand
There are many many more
 
hey now, the guys who made Blair Witch had pretty cheap but inventive way of directing - leave the actors in the woods at night, alone, while they (the actors) take care of what they (the actors) are wearing, saying, doing, shooting...while they (the directors) ran around the forest collecting sticks.

I think that movie cost in the tens-of-thousands range to produce, but nobody but the filmmakers know how much they put into all that damn marketing...

My vote goes to RR and El Mariachi.
 
As someone suggested Once was shot for under 100k, He said so when he accpeted the Academy Award. Also I remember Kevin Smith stating that it was either clerks or Mall Rats that was shot for 13k. Which is obvious but still cool.
 
HerzogisGod said:
5 million is a LOT of money....I would re-phrase that question for successful films produced under a million.

You'll get many many examples of successful films for under 5 mil.
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good idea, i lowered it to $3 million because if there are some good movies out there that are not too far over the million dollar mark perhaps i can analyze it and see where i could cut costs (if i were doing a film similar) to get it closer to the $1 million or $1.5 million range (i.e. substitute an expensive location for something similar, a certain actor that probably costed a lot, etc)

Batutta said:
But the original poster asked..."...and were actually pretty good."
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exactly! :thumbsup:
 
Dingos8mybaby said:
hey now, the guys who made Blair Witch had pretty cheap but inventive way of directing - leave the actors in the woods at night, alone, while they (the actors) take care of what they (the actors) are wearing, saying, doing, shooting...while they (the directors) ran around the forest collecting sticks.

I think that movie cost in the tens-of-thousands range to produce, but nobody but the filmmakers know how much they put into all that damn marketing...

My vote goes to RR and El Mariachi.
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Yeah, I wish I would have though of it and made a gazillion dollars too...Just don't tell me it's a good film.
 
Mattykins said:
If you are planning a film with a comparable budget. Stay under 2mil. Anything more than has an exponentially greater risk of not making it's money back.

Saved! was a 5mil feature. And it did almost 9 in the boxoffice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved!
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you know i read that somewhere before, maybe it was here, but why is that? or what's the reasoning of staying under the $2 million dollar mark for an indie?

let's say i had a budget of $2 million right now. should my film be that much with marketing included also? or just $2 million for production at the most?
 
The lower your budget, the harder it is to get name actors who will be a selling point for the film. Among other things.

Like it or not, if your film has no one anyone's heard of, it's far less likely to make any money. So, it takes money to make money.

(Yes, you can name profitable exceptions. But they're exactly that. :) )
 
Brick
Rocky
Reservoir Dogs.
Slingblade
Memento ($5Mil)
Following - Also Chris Nolan
Napoleon Dynamite (as mentioned)
Halloween
Hellraiser
Blood Simple
Brain Dead / Dead Alive (Peter Jackson)
Evil Dead I or II
Open Water
American Graffiti (George Lucas)
THX 1138 (George Lucas)
Sex Lies and Video Tape (Soderbergh)
Schizopolis (Soderbergh)
El Mariachi
Eraserhead (David Lynch)
CUBE
Slacker (Richard Linklater)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Last Night
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Mad Max
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Trainspotting ($3.5 Mill)
In the Company of Men ($25K!)
Primer
Pi
Cannibal the Musical (Trey Park and Matt Stone)
Saw
My Dinner with Andre
Rosemary's Baby
She's Gotta Have It (Spike Lee)
Welcome to the Doll House (Todd Solondz)
Happiness (Todd Solondz)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
 
David Jimerson said:
The lower your budget, the harder it is to get name actors who will be a selling point for the film. Among other things.

Like it or not, if your film has no one anyone's heard of, it's far less likely to make any money. So, it takes money to make money.

(Yes, you can name profitable exceptions. But they're exactly that. :) )
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yea, that's exactly my thinking, so i don't get why you should keep the budget under $2 million...is it better to do that for films going straight to DVD without the theatrical release or something? that i can understand, but not if your goal is to get theatrical distribution.
 
Well, I think over $2mm, you enter a gray area where the profit potential of the film is shaky compared to the budget. At a substantially higher cost, you can afford more of the things which will make your film more attractive for distribution, but there's that budget black hole in between. There's just no market in that budgetary area.

In general, high-level terms, of course. There are always going to be, again, exceptions.
 
AND in the $1M-$2M range you can still get name (recognizable) actors, even if it is for a cameo (selling point) role.
 
Batutta said:
Pulp Fiction's budget was 8 million.
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Yeah meant Reservoir Dogs. I think Tarantino's quote regarding the two film's budgets was something like they shot Dogs for 1 million and tried to make it look like Eight and Pulp for eight and tried to make it look like 30.
David Jimerson said:
Would be interesting to see that list adjusted for inflation.
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70 - 80% would hold since most of those are around a million or way under.
I think all of them would hold under 5 mil.
 
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