Big Budget Movies Earn More

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The predictable success of a movie’s depend on the budget specially. The days are gone when people make a movie hit or popular by it’s story. Now people pay their attention to the movie where a super star acting as a hero.



The predictable success of a movie’s depend on the budget specially.
Not always, but most of the time, this can be true. This is because it's easier and safer for studios to pump tons of money into a film and saturate every medium with marketing and put the film on as many screens as possible. When this is done, the vast majority of the time the strategy works because making sure everyone has heard of your film is often more than enough to make it successful, especially if the film is based on some sort of property or brand.

That said, there's tons of films that don't work under this model like John Carter, Edge of tomorrow, and 47 Ronin. Here's a fun list!

The days are gone when people make a movie hit or popular by it’s story.
I'd say a huge reason for that is special effects. Prior to about 1960 you had to rely heavily on the story because the effects and action weren't going to carry a film. Effects and action still don't carry a film, but people can sit through a dumb film if it's big and flashy (Transformers, anyone?). And, before the film geeks jump down my throat, I want to remind them of films like The Raid that most of them watched without worrying about pesky things like plot or character...

All said, I'd say people have always been easily entertained by spectacle. If this weren't true then Buster Keaton would have had a totally different career.

Now people pay their attention to the movie where a super star acting as a hero.
Not true in the slightest. Super stars don't work in modern Hollywood. Sure, a big name can be nice on the poster, but they just don't open movies anymore. All you have to do is look at this years box office. The highest grossing film starred a former chubby guy from TV and one our lesser performing films starred Tom freaking Cruise. I can't blame this entirely on couch jumping, this is a trend that's been changing for almost two decades.

Bottom line, marketing is probably the most powerful driving force to a films success or failure.
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I will say if a big star is attached it will make a difference.
Stick Jennifer Lawrence in it and you're almost guaranteed an audience and to make some fast cash.


But it's certainly not all the time that a big budget or big star will make a big profit.


Paranormal Activity was made on a budget of 15k... and it's total profit was something sill like 25,000 times what it cost.
That means an independent movie that's not actually that good, with a budget that my own children could afford, is more successful than the likes of Harry Potter, Avatar, even the Star Wars Saga.


As BB said above, John Carter is a prime example of big budgets making no return at all.
Waterworld is another, in 1995 Waterworld cost $350m if you include marketing etc... in today's money that's a budget of around $800m. Waterworld was a monumental flop.


The major problem with movies these days is reused ideas and remakes.
An example: Insidious is just Poltergeist wrapped around in a different cast.



Leading on from success to do with budgets, can anyone explain to me why Hollywood does this? For example, why do studios pump $100 million+ into a loud and dumb blockbuster with a ridiculous concept which will invariably make a loss? Why not take that money and split it 5 or so ways into intriguing concepts by directors with unique visions? Apart from being much more economical and not putting all their eggs in one basket, it would probably earn then more in the long run.

I understand that franchises like The Hunger Games are guaranteed to make gargantuan sums of money now so Hollywood are going to split them up into two parters like the cash hungry cows they are. But what about those new concept films with huge budgets? Well, I say new concept, but I'm referring to movies like Hercules starring Dwayne Johnson or Pompeii by Paul W.S. Anderson.

Why do those types of movies get so much financing? Quite a lot of them bomb. And would it not be possible to market the less expensive films in a more commercial way, thereby attracting crowds of fans who might actually get treated to a good movie?

Just something I don't understand about the studio system. I also can't fathom why studios tamper with directors' visions as it is a rare occasion where the former makes the film better for this and fans are always wanting to see directors cuts.



Master of My Domain
My theory on the reason why things have changed this way in fact the advance of technology. During the 90s spectacular CGI imagery became possible, and it opened up a whole new world, and lead to films such as Terminator and The Matrix etc. The Hollywood realized that all they needed was this new toy in order to get people to the theaters, and that they didn't really need a 'story'.

Back in the old days there wasn't any of these, and all they could focus on is the script and acting. That was natural, and that was mainstream.

Now the mainstream has changed and the generation has changed, and popular movies have turned into big-budget messes with a bunch of meaningless explosions. Marvel is trying hard to add good story and acting to these kinds of films, but its true that the amount of rich, complex films have reduced significantly.

I've learned to adapt to the new films a bit, but there's a reason why I usually watch old films.



Leading on from success to do with budgets, can anyone explain to me why Hollywood does this? For example, why do studios pump $100 million+ into a loud and dumb blockbuster with a ridiculous concept which will invariably make a loss? Why not take that money and split it 5 or so ways into intriguing concepts by directors with unique visions? Apart from being much more economical and not putting all their eggs in one basket, it would probably earn then more in the long run.
It's actually financially safer to bankroll a $150 million+ movie than to fund 5 films of lesser budget. If you put $200 million into a film and another $200 million into marketing the crap out of it then you are almost always going to make your money back. Sure, there's big budget films that fail, but more succeed than fail.

The problem with moderate budget films is you still have to spend $40-60 million on marketing and that will put a film that was reasonably budgeted into a $100 million budget and those can really hurt if you're only making $80-100 million back.

Basically it's safer financially to back 10 Transformers per year than to back 50 The Transporter's.

Check this search out for more. Also, Steven Soderbergh talked about this in his "I'm sick of Hollywood" speech he made last year. I can't find it, but I'm sure others on the site can.



“Why do you wanna fight?” says Adrian. “Cause I can’t sing or dance,” replies Rocky. Perhaps this exchange epitomizes the reason for the classic boxing movie’s success and overwhelming cult status. It provided a cinematic classic for a largely male audience who needed a hero; one that wasn't heroic because of his moon walk or falsetto, but for his fighting spirit. With a budget of $1 million, Rocky notched up an impressive worldwide gross of $225 million, giving a percentage return of over 11,000%. Knockout.