Nick Sellers writes: "I adore Documentary. To me, it tells stories and reveals characters that you just couldn’t cook up for a blockbuster screenplay, no matter how hard even the most creative of souls try and conjure up something in their vivid imaginations. No other genre of film has such an ability to inspire change in the same manner as a good, thought provoking Doc, Thin Blue Line being the greatest example. It inspires discussion and debate, gives fascinating glimpses into complex lives and delves deep into the layers of a person via an interview and/or cinematic portrait of them.
From 2000 to 2010, there was a lovely influx of films that not only rose to the top of the Doc forefront, but also the forefront of mainstream cinema and film culture. Whilst a good film or television Documentary isn’t a rare occurrence, rarely does a title from such a category get muttered in the same breath as a big box office fictional movie.
This article looks at the top five from the Nough...
Gaming doesn't have to just be fun. It can be educational too. Documentaries showing how people's favorites are made can be great!
Chillopedia | Some of Hollywood’s greatest productions have come at a surprisingly low development cost sporting budgets that barely even touch six digits proving that great movies aren’t defined by the money used to produce them.
It's too bad film budgets are so bloated nowadays. It seems like 250 million is the magic number. A film like 'The Lone Ranger' is getting a 250 mil budget? Say what you want about the Spiderman reboot, but at least they kept it down to 80 million.
Sorry, but this is kind of a bad list. I can at least agree with Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch. Despite the fact that Blair Witch I never found to be that good, and it only skated by on a brilliant marketing campaign.
As for the other three? Not even worthy of a list like this really considering all the other options:
Super Size Me: Sure, the movie only cost 65,000 to make. However, tack on the extra million + that they dumped into advertising for that movie and the profit margin drops considerably. Making a mere 27x its budget. There are better movies that did FAR better than that.
Open Water? Not even. Though, this is probably the more worthy of the 3 to be on the list. Yes it was very low budget. While not horrible, it wasn't that great though. Pretty mediocre (while showing plenty of unfulfilled promise). And it only cost about half a million to make, while making about 55 million worldwide. That's a pretty good margin, making about 110x its budget.
Finally the most laughable one: Juno. Sorry, but there's no way you can call a $7 million movie a low budget one. Even if you ignore that fact, the movie still only had a 3,300% return. That doesn't even begin to compare to many other movies. Especially to some of the real low budget movies that were criminally left off this list.
So, leave Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch Project on there, but the other three really should be replaced with other movies which not only did better, but were far better in quality as well. Possible replacements:
Clerks:
Kevin Smith made this one for only $27,000. It then went on to make almost $4 million in theaters. That's a 14,400% return.
Halloween:
As huge as this franchise became, many people don't realize how small it was when it started. Carpenter made the first one for only $320,000. It then went on to make like $70 million. That's almost 220 times what it cost to make.
Rocky:
Not sure people realize how much of a success Rocky was. Like the Halloween franchise, it went on to be a huge franchise, but started very small. With a budget of $1 million, it went on to make about $225 million worldwide. I think you can do the math on that one.
Night of the Living Dead:
How about the one that started it all. "All" being the zombie craze we know today, that is. The legend Romero made this one for just $114,000. Considering it made about $30 million, that gives it a 26,300% return.
Mad Max:
The one that brought that crazy bastard Mel Gibson into our lives. Cost to make? $200,000. Box office? almost $100 million. That means it made almost 500 times what it cost to make it.
As for Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, Blair made about a 41,000% return on it's investment, making it definitely worthy of the list even if it was a crappy movie.
Paranormal Activity shits all over every other movie on this list, though, in comparison. With a budget of $15,000, it made almost $200million worldwide. That's like a 1,314,000% return!! That's a larger margin that the previous six movies combined....ten times over!!!
FilmMattic writes: My newest "What I've Been Watching" segment. In the segment, I provide shortened reviews for some of the movies I've watched recently. For this week, I discuss Man on Wire, The Rules of the Game and Blow Out.
