Even if you feel like you keep seeing the same mediocre genre movies repackaged with just a different façade, year after year, a few American studios have some surprises in store that promise to change that storyline. A trend has begun among big studios to begin producing so-called ""microbudget"" films that they would have otherwise left to the tiny indie studios to produce. This isn't just the well-established genre of American independent films, but a whole new genre of even ""indie-er"" flicks.
It began in early 2010, when Paramount, fresh off the runaway success of the verging-on-homemade horror movie ""Paranormal Activity,"" announced it would be spending around a million dollars a year to produce 10 small microbudget films. Paramount named the new corporate division Insurge Pictures and plans to incorporate innovative digital avenues in producing and marketing the films online, such as crowdsourcing audition tapes to help cast roles.
Hopefully, these fresh digital strategies will amount to more than the usual viral marketing fare, which has gotten rather stale lately. Paramount won't be looking to pick up finished films off the festival circuit, but rather to discover burgeoning filmmaking teams looking for an outlet through which to produce their own unique films.
The major indie studio Lionsgate—as much of an oxymoron as that may be—has aimed a little higher, recently announcing its intent to develop films with budgets under $2 million—still considerably less than most popular indies. Lionsgate has already announced the first few movies under their new initiative.
""Rapturepalooza"" follows Craig Robinson of ""The Office"" fame as the Antichrist in a dark comedy set on Earth after the rapture. ""Gay Dude"" has been described as a ""Superbad""-style teen comedy about two friends who vow to lose their virginity before graduation, only for one to inform his bro he's looking to lose it to a dude. The script made it onto last year's Black List, an annual list of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, and seems like the perfect fit. And ""6 Miranda Drive"" is billed as a supernatural thriller grounded heavily in reality, revolving around a family who brings a supernatural force home with them. It sounds to me decidedly in the vein of the microbudget success ""Paranormal Activity.""
What makes microbudget films so appealing to studios is that they carry very little overhead and risk. Yet, they have the potential for a large payoff if they prove popular. The ‘90s microbudget horror hit ""The Blair Witch Project"" was made for somewhere between $500,000 and $750,000, but its box-office gross alone was almost $250 million. If a studio is able to successfully market just one of ten microbudget films it produces each year, it could potentially cover its loss on all the flops and then some.
After discovering the promising talent of young screenwriter and actress Brit Marling at Sundance this year in the low-budget sci-fi drama ""Another Earth"" and the microbudget thriller ""The Sound of My Voice,"" I can already see the potential these programs have as an incubator for young, up-and-coming filmmakers to cut their teeth and prove themselves in a low-risk environment.
Furthermore, through these programs, studios will be much more willing to take risks on outside-of-the-box ideas. Thanks to these programs this spirit of risk taking is precisely what already appeals so much to me about modern indie films. These new microbudgets will make funding even more accessible to so many more filmmakers with passion and innovative ideas.
Could this be the genesis of a true meritocracy makeover of the US film industry? Much like home digital recording and consumer-friendly software like Garage Band have made music production a realistic prospect for the amateur musician in all of us, perhaps this is the beginning of a similar trend in the film industry. Hopefully, in the near future, anyone with a passion for film and an original story to tell will be able to make their movie idea into a reality. This is certainly a promising step in that direction.
Is David thinking too small? If so, email him at dcottrell@wisc.edu.
