A low-budget film or low-budget movie is a motion picture shot with little to no funding from a major film studio or private investor. Many independent films are made on low budgets, but films made on the mainstream circuit with inexperienced or unknown filmmakers can also have low budgets. Many young or first time filmmakers shoot low-budget films to prove their talent before doing bigger productions. Most low-budget films that do not gain some form of attention or acclaim are never released in theatres and are often sent straight to retail because of their lack of marketability, look,
narrative story, or
premise
A premise or premiss is a true or false statement that helps form the body of an argument, which logically leads to a true or false conclusion. A premise makes a declarative statement about its subject matter which enables a reader to either agre ...
. There is no precise number to define a low budget production, and it is relative to both genre and country. What might be a low-budget film in one country may be a big budget in another. Modern-day young filmmakers rely on
film festival
A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon ...
s for pre-promotion. They use this to gain acclaim and attention for their films, which often leads to a
limited release
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
in theatres. Films that acquire a
cult following
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...
may be given a
wide release In the American motion picture industry, a wide release (short for nationwide release) is a film playing at the same time at cinemas in most markets across the country. This is in contrast to the formerly common practice of a roadshow theatrical re ...
. Low-budget films can be either
professional productions or
amateur
An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...
. They are either shot using professional- or consumer-grade equipment.
Some genres are more conducive to low-budget filmmaking than others.
Horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
s are a very popular genre for low-budget
directorial debut
This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...
s. Jeremy Gardner, director of ''
The Battery'' says that horror fans are more attracted to how the films affect them than seeing
movie star
A movie star (also known as a film star or cinema star) is an actor or actress who is famous for their starring, or leading, roles in movies. The term is used for performers who are marketable stars as they become popular household names and w ...
s. This allows horror films to focus more on provoking a reaction than on expensive casting choices.
Thriller films are also a popular choice for low-budget films, as they focus on narrative.
Science fiction film
Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...
s, which were once the domain of
B movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
s, frequently require a big budget to accommodate their special effects, but low-cost do-it-yourself
computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...
can make them affordable, especially when they focus on story and characterization.
Plot device
A plot device or plot mechanism
is any narrative technique, technique in a narrative used to move the Plot (narrative), plot forward. A clichéd plot device may annoy the reader and a contrived or arbitrary device may confuse the reader, causing ...
s like shooting as
found footage can lower production costs, and scripts that rely on extended dialogue, such as ''
Reservoir Dogs
''Reservoir Dogs'' is a 1992 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward Bunke ...
'' or ''
Sex, Lies, and Videotape
''Sex, Lies, and Videotape'' (often written in all lowercase as ''sex, lies, and videotape'') is a 1989 American Independent film, independent Drama (film and television), drama film written and directed by Steven Soderbergh. The plot tells the s ...
'', can entertain audiences without many sets.
The money flow in filmmaking is a unique system because of the uncertainty of demand. The makers of the film do not know how well the film they release will be received. They may predict a film will do very well and pay back the cost of production but only get a portion back. Or the opposite may happen where a project that few think will go far can bring in more profit than imaginable. A big gambling variable that is also involved is the use of stars. Frequently stars are brought on to a project to gain the film publicity and fame. This process can be profitable, but it is not a foolproof mechanism to successful funding. Well-known actors may join a low-budget film for a portion of the gross.
Notable low-budget films
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee (; born Lee Jun-fan, ; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines that ...
's low-budget 1970s
Hong Kong martial arts films
Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. Action films from Hong Kong have roots in Chinese and Hong Kong cultures including Chinese opera, storytelling and aesthetic traditions, which Hong K ...
were some of the most commercially successful
and
profitable
In economics, profit is the difference between the revenue that an economic entity has received from its outputs and the total cost of its inputs. It is equal to total revenue minus total cost, including both explicit and implicit costs.
It i ...
films of all time. ''
The Way of the Dragon
''The Way of the Dragon'' (, originally released in the United States as ''Return of the Dragon'') is a 1972 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film written, co-produced and directed by Bruce Lee, who also stars in the lead role. This is Lee ...
'' (1972) grossed worldwide against a $130,000 budget (a %
return on investment
Return on investment (ROI) or return on costs (ROC) is a ratio between net income (over a period) and investment (costs resulting from an investment of some resources at a point in time). A high ROI means the investment's gains compare favourably ...
), while ''
Enter the Dragon
''Enter the Dragon'' ( zh, t=龍爭虎鬥) is a 1973 martial arts film directed by Robert Clouse and written by Michael Allin. The film stars Bruce Lee, John Saxon and Jim Kelly. It was Lee's final completed film appearance before his death o ...
'' (
1973) grossed worldwide against a $850,000 budget (a % return on investment).
Another example of a very successful low-budget
Asian film from the same decade was the 1975
Bollywood
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
"
Dacoit Western
Dacoity is a term used for " banditry" in the Indian subcontinent. The spelling is the anglicised version of the Hindi word ''daaku''; "dacoit" is a colloquial Indian English word with this meaning and it appears in the ''Glossary of Colloqu ...
" film ''
Sholay
''Sholay'' (, ) is a 1975 Indian Hindi-language action-adventure film directed by Ramesh Sippy, produced by his father G. P. Sippy, and written by Salim–Javed. The film is about two criminals, Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), ...
'', which cost ($400,000) to produce and grossed ($67 million), making it
Indian cinema
The Cinema of India consists of motion pictures produced in India, which had a large effect on world cinema since the late 20th century. Major centers of film production across the country include Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Ko ...
's
highest-grossing film
Films generate income from several revenue streams, including theatrical exhibition, home video, television broadcast rights, and merchandising. However, theatrical box-office earnings are the primary metric for trade publications in assess ...
ever up until then.
Wayne Wang
Wayne Wang (; born January 12, 1949) is a Hong Kong Americans, Hong Kong–American Film director, director, Film producer, producer, and screenwriter. Considered a pioneer of Asian-American cinema, he was one of the first Chinese Americans, ...
's film ''
Chan Is Missing
''Chan Is Missing'' is a 1982 American independent comedy-drama film produced and directed by Wayne Wang. The film, which is shot in black and white, is plotted as a mystery with noir undertones, and its title is a play on the Charlie Chan f ...
'', set on the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown, was made for $20,000 in 1982.
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
columnist
Herb Caen
Herbert Eugene Caen (; April 3, 1916 February 1, 1997) was a San Francisco humorist and journalist whose daily column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, and offbeat puns and anecdotes—"A continuous love let ...
wrote that the budget would not have paid for the shoelaces in the film ''
Annie
Annie may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Annie (given name), a given name and a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Annie (actress) (born 1975), Indian actress
* Annie (singer) (born 1977), Norwegian singer
The ...
''.
One of the most successful low-budget films was 1999's ''
The Blair Witch Project
''The Blair Witch Project'' is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (director), Eduardo Sánchez. It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Mic ...
''. It had a budget of around $60,000 but grossed almost $249 million worldwide. It spawned books, a trilogy of video games, and a
less-popular sequel. Another successful low-budget film was 2007's
Paranormal Activity
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
, with a budget of only $15,000, the film went on to gross more than $190 million. Possibly an even more successful low-budget film was the 1972 film ''
Deep Throat'' which cost only $22,500 to produce, yet was rumored to have grossed over $600 million, though this figure is often disputed.
Another film that not only had a major return on its investment but also had a huge cultural impact was Mad Max. Mad Max was made for $200,000 USD but returned over 100 million USD. It also started off a major franchise that resulted in another 3 movies.
Mad Max held the
Guinness Book of Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
record for most profitable movie for 20 years, eventually beaten by The Blair Witch Project.
''
Rocky
''Rocky'' is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the first installment in the ''Rocky'' franchise and stars Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, and Burgess M ...
'' was shot on a budget of $1 million and eventually grossed $225 million worldwide, making
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Enzio Stallone (; born Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, ) is an American actor and filmmaker. After his beginnings as a struggling actor for a number of years upon arriving to New York City in 1969 and later Hollywood in 1974, h ...
a star. ''
Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...
'' was produced on a budget of $325,000 and grossed $70 million worldwide. ''
Napoleon Dynamite
''Napoleon Dynamite'' is a 2004 American comedy film produced by Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt and Sean Covel, written by Jared and Jerusha Hess and directed by Jared Hess. The film stars Jon Heder in the role of the titular character, a nerdy high- ...
'' cost less than $400,000 to make but its gross revenue was $46 million. Divisions of
major film studio
Major film studios are production and distribution companies that release a substantial number of films annually and consistently command a significant share of box office revenue in a given market. In the American and international markets, the ...
s that specialize in such films, such as
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Searchlight Pictures, Inc. is an American film production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is part of the Walt Disney Company. Founded in 1994 as Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc. for 20th Century Fox (later 20th Century St ...
,
Miramax
Miramax, LLC, also known as Miramax Films, is an American film and television production and distribution company founded on December 19, 1979, by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and based in Los Angeles, California.
It was initially a leadi ...
, and
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after acq ...
, have made the distribution of low budget films competitive.
The UK film ''
Monsters
A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology and religion. Monsters are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive with a strange, grotesque appearance that causes terror and fe ...
'' is a recent successful example of bringing what was once considered the exclusive preserve of the big studios—the expensive, special effects blockbuster—to independent, low-budget cinema. The film's budget was reported to be approximately $500,000,
but it grossed $4,188,738
at the box office.
A considerable number of low- and modest-budget films have been forgotten by their makers and fallen into the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
. This has been especially true of low-budget films made in the United States from 1923 to 1978 (films and other works made in the US during this period fell into public domain if their copyrights weren't renewed 28 years after the original production). Examples include a number of films made by
Ed Wood
Edward Davis Wood Jr. (October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978) was an American filmmaker,
actor, and pulp novel author.
In the 1950s, Wood directed several low-budget science fiction, crime and horror films that later became cult cla ...
or
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...
.
Some low-budget films have failed miserably at the box office and been quickly forgotten, only to increase in popularity decades later. A number of cheaply made movies have attained cult-film status after being considered
some of the worst features ever made for many years. The most famous examples of this latter-day popularity of low-budget box-office failures include ''
Plan 9 from Outer Space
''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is a 1957 American independent science fiction-horror film produced, written, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film was shot in black-and-white in November 1956 and had a theatrical preview screening on March 15 ...
'' and ''
Manos: The Hands of Fate''.
Additionally, some low-cost films that have had little (or modest) success upon their initial release have later been considered classics. ''
The Last Man on Earth'' was the first adaptation of the novel ''
I Am Legend'' by
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.
He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science ficti ...
. Due to budgetary constraints, the vampires in the film were zombie-like creatures instead of fast and agile monsters portrayed in the novel. This approach (and film) was not considered a success at the time, but it inspired
George A. Romero
George Andrew Romero (; February 4, 1940 – July 16, 2017) was an American-Canadian filmmaker, writer, editor and actor. His ''Night of the Living Dead'' series of films about an imagined zombie apocalypse began with the 1968 film of the ...
's work in his film ''
Night of the Living Dead
''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American independent horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, with a screenplay by John Russo and Romero, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven peop ...
''. Thus, ''The Last Man on Earth'' became a precursor to numerous
zombie films
A zombie film is a film genre. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror g ...
, and fans of those films later re-discovered the original, making it a cult classic.
The 2017 Indian film ''
Secret Superstar
''Secret Superstar'' is a 2017 Indian Hindi-language musical drama film written and directed by Advait Chandan, and produced by Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao under the studio Aamir Khan Productions. for The film stars Zaira Wasim, Aamir Khan, Meher ...
'' became one of the most profitable films of all time,
grossing
()
worldwide on a limited budget of , with over %
return on investment
Return on investment (ROI) or return on costs (ROC) is a ratio between net income (over a period) and investment (costs resulting from an investment of some resources at a point in time). A high ROI means the investment's gains compare favourably ...
(ROI).
Micro budget
![Curtis Choy and Chris Chow prepare to interview Wendy Yoshimura](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Curtis_Choy_and_Chris_Chow_prepare_to_interview_Wendy_Yoshimura.jpg)
A micro budget film is that which is made on an extremely low budget, sometimes as little as a few thousand dollars. An example of such would be the popular 1992 film ''
El Mariachi
''El Mariachi'' is a 1992 Spanish language American independent neo-Western film and the first part of the saga that came to be known as Robert Rodriguez's '' Mexico Trilogy''. It marked the feature-length debut of Rodriguez as writer and direc ...
'', in which the director
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodriguez (; born June 20, 1968) is an American filmmaker, composer, and visual effects supervisor. He shoots, edits, produces, and scores many of his films in Mexico and in his home state of Texas. Rodriguez directed the 1992 ac ...
was unable to afford second takes due to the $7000 budget. Despite this, it was a success both critically and commercially, and started the young director's career.
Some of the most critically acclaimed micro-budget films were by the
Bengali film director
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs of fil ...
, his most famous being ''
The Apu Trilogy
''The Apu Trilogy'' comprises three Indian Bengali-language drama films directed by Satyajit Ray: ''Pather Panchali'' (1955), ''Aparajito'' (1956) and ''The World of Apu'' (1959). The original music for the films was composed by Ravi Shankar.
...
'' (1955–1959). The first film in the trilogy, ''
Pather Panchali
''Pather Panchali'' (; ) is a 1955 Indian Bengali (language), Bengali-language Drama (film and television), drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of West Bengal. It is an adaptation of Bibhutibhushan Ba ...
'' (1955), was produced on a shoestring budget of
Rs.
Rupee is the common name for the currencies of
India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...
200,000 ($3000) using an amateur cast and crew. The three films are now frequently listed among the
greatest films of all time
This is a list of films considered the best in national and international surveys of critics and the public.
Some surveys focus on all films, while others focus on a particular genre or country. Voting systems differ, and some surveys suffer ...
.
All his other films that followed also had micro-budgets or low-budgets, with his most expensive films being ''
The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha'' (1968) at Rs.600,000 ($12,000) and ''
Shatranj Ke Khilari
''Shatranj Ke Khilari'', also subtitled and later internationally released with the translated title ''The Chess Players'', is a 1977 Indian film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, based on Munshi Premchand's short story of the same name ...
'' (1977) at Rs.2 million ($40,000).
Another example would be the 1977
cult film
A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage ...
''
Eraserhead
''Eraserhead'' is a 1977 American surrealist film, surrealist horror film written, directed, produced, and edited by David Lynch. Lynch also created its Eraserhead (soundtrack), score and sound design, which included pieces by a variety of oth ...
'', which cost only $10,000 to produce. Director
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...
had so much trouble securing funds that the film had to be made over a six-year period, whenever Lynch could afford to shoot scenes. In 2014, journalist
Kyle Smith estimated the film has grossed over $7 million.
''
Slacker
A slacker is someone who habitually avoids work or lacks work ethic.
Origin
According to different sources, the term ''slacker'' dates back to about 1790 or 1898. "Slacker" gained some recognition during the British Gezira Scheme in the early t ...
'', a 1991 comedy-drama film written and directed by
Richard Linklater
Richard Stuart Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for films that revolve mainly around suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies '' ...
, was produced for $23,000. The film was inducted into the
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...
in 2012. Influenced by the success of ''Slacker'', ''
Clerks
A clerk is someone who works in an office. A retail clerk works in a store.
Office holder
Clerk(s) may also refer to a person who holds an office, most commonly in a local unit of government, or a court.
*Barristers' clerk, a manager and adminis ...
'' was written and directed by
Kevin Smith
Kevin Patrick Smith (born August 2, 1970) is an American filmmaker, actor, comedian, comic book writer, author, YouTuber, and podcaster. He came to prominence with the low-budget comedy buddy film ''Clerks'' (1994), which he wrote, directed, co ...
for $27,575 in 1994 which he paid for on his
credit card
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...
and grossed $3.2 million in theatres. ''Clerks'' launched Smith's career as a director and he has made several considerable higher budget films.
In Russia, the 1997 crime film ''
Brother
A brother is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to non-familia ...
'' was made with a budget of around $10,000, and was extremely successful when it was first released.
In 1998,
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American filmmaker. Known for his lucrative Cinema of the United States, Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, Nolan is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. ...
's first film ''
Following
''Following'' is a 1998 independent neo-noir crime thriller film written, produced, edited and directed by Christopher Nolan. It tells the story of a young man who follows strangers around the streets of London and is drawn into a criminal unde ...
'' was filmed on a budget of £3,000. Nolan then received another £3,000 to "blow it up to 35mm".
''
Primer
Primer may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Primer'' (film), a 2004 feature film written and directed by Shane Carruth
* ''Primer'' (video), a documentary about the funk band Living Colour
Literature
* Primer (textbook), a t ...
'' is a 2004 American science fiction film written, directed and produced by Shane Carruth, a former mathematician and engineer, who also starred, and was completed on a budget of only $7,000.
Also in 2004, the
documentary ''
Tarnation'' had a budget of $218.32, but grossed $1,200,000.
In 2007 the
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
premiered the first film shot in a cell phone. Dutch avant-garde filmmaker
Cyrus Frisch
Cyrus Frisch (born 1969 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch avant-garde film maker. ''Filmmaker'' magazine called him the wild man of Dutch film. According to Holland Film, Frisch is one of the most daring film makers currently working in the Netherland ...
shot the 70-minute film, titled
Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me It Would Become This Bad in Afghanistan for only $200 on a Sharp 903 cell phone, with its built-in 3.2-megapixel camera.
''
Paranormal Activity
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
'', a 2007 horror film written and directed by Oren Peli, was made for $15,000 and grossing about $193,355,800 (adjusted by inflation: $). ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' critic
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for ''Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014. ...
gave ''Paranormal Activity'' an A− rating (A being the highest mark) and called it "frightening...freaky and terrifying" and said that "''Paranormal Activity'' scrapes away 30 years of encrusted nightmare clichés." ''
One Cut of the Dead
is a 2017 Japanese zombie comedy film written and directed by Shin'ichirō Ueda. It follows a team of actors and filmmakers who are tasked with shooting a zombie film for live television, and who must do so in a One-shot film, single take.
Made ...
'' (2017), a low-budget Japanese
zombie comedy
The zombie comedy, often called zom com or zomedy, is a film genre that aims to blend zombie horror motifs with slapstick comedy as well as morbid humor.
History
The earliest roots of the genre can be found in Jean Yarbrough's ''King of the ...
film, was produced on a budget of ($25,000) and went on to gross over () at the Japanese box office, where it made history by earning over a thousand times its budget.
Academic research on low-budget film production (economic)
Only a small amount of academic research has been conducted on the economic impact of low-budget feature-film production. Two studies conducted from a British perspective includes Steve Chibnall's ''Quota Quickies: The Birth of the British 'B' Film'' and
JC Crissey's doctoral thesis ''The UK low-budget film sector during the 'digital revolution' between 2000 and 2012: a quantitative assessment of its technological, economic and cultural characteristics''.
[ Crissey, John C. III (21 June 2019)]
''The UK low-budget film sector during the 'digital revolution' between 2000 and 2012: a quantitative assessment of its technological, economic and cultural characteristics''
Ph.D. thesis. Royal Holloway, University of London.
See also
*
Independent film
An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, i ...
*
No-budget film
A no-budget film is a film made with very little or no money. Actors and technicians are often employed in these films without remuneration. A no-budget film is typically made at the beginning of a filmmaker's career, with the intention of either ...
References
{{Authority control
Film and video terminology
Budgets