The so-called big-scale movies, I think everyone is no stranger.
These films generally belong to the super blockbusters that are released globally, and because there are many regions where they are released, the cost is very high, but at the same time, the box office can be harvested more.
However, from a purely profitable point of view, large-scale films are sometimes inferior to ordinary cost and even small-scale films.
After all, movies also need to take into account issues such as expenses.
There are some movies in Hollywood, and the production cost is pitifully low, but the box office is impressive, making the audience feel like "I knew I was going to invest".
In the late 1990s, at the beginning of the new century, there was a Chinese teenager born in Malaysia but raised in Australia.
He was very thin, but he was quite addicted to scary things like horror, and studied them day and night.
By the time he graduated, he wanted to bring these horror elements to the screen, so after several experiments, he planned to work with his classmates to make a script of what he had in mind.
This teenager is Wen Ziren, the future Hollywood horror film master.
Together with his classmate Ray, Wen Ziren created the script for the classic "Chainsaw Horror" and hoped to find a company to invest in filming it.
But everyone understands, two unrecognized students, which manufacturer will be so stupid to lose money in the past?
After consideration, Wen Ziren understood that in order for people to invest money, they must first let them see the potential of the project.
Therefore, Wen Ziren chose a paragraph in the script that he thought was more interesting, Lei also personally went to the battle, and by the way, he also found a lot of young people who wanted to make quick money, and spent 8 days in a dilapidated rotten toilet to shoot this paragraph.
The filming process was very difficult, and the old broken toilet water pipe would burst, but Wen Ziren insisted on it, and after the short film was filmed, they rushed to find Lionsgate Pictures and introduced themselves.
The head of Lionsgate was so impressed with the script that they decided to invest $1.2 million to expand the clip into a movie.
Originally, Chainsaw Horror was intended to be released as a disc, but at the Sundance Film Festival, the film received rave reviews from most of the audience, and Lionsgate planned to release it as an R-rated film in theaters around the world.
Interestingly, at that time, the people at Lionsgate Wanted to give Wen Ziren a direct sum of money as a reward, but Wen Ziren refused, insisting that he want the box office dividend of the film.
This looks very thin Wen Ziren, and he is really confident in himself.
As a result, the box office of "Chainsaw Horror" soared all the way after its release, calling it "unstoppable" by foreign media, and finally won hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office with a cost of only $1.2 million, which was 86 times the cost.
Of course, for Wen Ziren, his road of "small and big" has just begun, but "Chainsaw Horror" can also be regarded as a complete success for his name.
In fact, it is not only thin people who can do this kind of thing, such as the well-known tough man Stallone.
At first, Stallone had muscles, but his acting career was very difficult, and he conducted thousands of interviews in New York and found nothing.
Later, with the support of his wife Sasha, Stallone came to Los Angeles, where Hollywood is located, but as in New York, no one asked him to shoot.
However, Stallone actually prepared a second plan very early, and if the actor's path is not ok, he will become a screenwriter.
While in Los Angeles, Stallone was inspired to watch a game by Boxer Ali and wrote a script about a down-and-out boxer.
This is the script for Rocky.
Because the script of "Rocky" was so good, many film manufacturers wanted to buy it at the time, but Stallone's request was that he must be the male protagonist in it.
In this way, those manufacturers are happy, you are an unknown, no backstage, inexperienced small role, but also want to be the protagonist of the movie as soon as you come up, is it a dream has not woken up?
Under Sasha's persuasion, Stallone, whose bank card was only 100 yuan at the time, refused the high price offered by the film manufacturer to buy only the script, and finally found MGM, a manufacturer willing to let him be the male lead.
The results are certainly gratifying, although MGM only gave a budget of about $1.1 million, but Stallone's side is basically able to save money.
For example, with Sasha's help, some of the extras were performed by Stallone's family and friends, in all aspects to make the best results using the lowest budget.
After the release of "Rocky", it shocked the United States, and with its cost of 1.1 million, it won nearly $120 million in North America, which can be said to be very outstanding.
Stallone also began to emerge in the circle with this film.
The cost of more than a million in exchange for hundreds of millions of box office is very powerful, but is there anything more frightening?
Yes, Blair the Witch in 1999 cost only $60,000 to produce and grossed $248 million.
The main reason why this film has achieved such amazing results is that it has set a precedent for "pseudo-documentary horror films".
The whole movie looks as high as some documentaries we often see on TV, whether it is the way it is shot or the texture, etc., it is exactly the same as the documentary.
It seems that the feeling is two words: real.
Similarly, in order to ensure this style, the three leading actors did not use pseudonyms in the movie, but used their real names to participate in the performance.
Of course, there are also marketing methods.
The official website of the film was established on the Internet and the relevant information about the missing students and so on was released in a deliberate manner.
At that time, there was a great controversy and even panic on the Internet, and countless netizens and audiences were arguing about whether the plot of the movie was based on real events.
Due to the unprecedented heat caused by this viral marketing, the box office of the film has soared.
In the end, north America earned $140 million at the box office, and overseas regions were 108 million U.S. dollars, a total of $248 million worldwide, which is about 4134 times the cost.
Of course, in fact, although there are examples of small investment and large returns in the film circle, more often than not, it is still high investment high risk and high return, small investment low risk and low return.
After all, this is also the law of the market, otherwise if the film producer can repeatedly be small and broad, it is also an unhealthy performance of the market.