So if Blair Witch made 240 million...

[MelonDome]

The film cost $22,000 to make and made back $240.5 million, a ratio of $1 spent for every $10,931 made.

If this is the case, why aren't the directors/actors filthy rich and in the hollywood mainstream? Just curious, where did all that money go, and why didn't it open the door to bigger films for them?

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

RAW FEED

The people that made BW just got a million bucks... That had to be split among several people... It was the studio that bought it that made the real money. Hell, the filmmakers returned the RCA Hi8 camera they shot the video on back to the store where they purchased it.

Dan Myrick has gone on to create RAW FEED -- a direct to video prodco for the video arm of Warner Brothers.

Their first movie -- REST STOP -- is being touted as one of the worst movies ever made... LOL. Plus, there's a really great story about how they got their title but I can't really discuss it here.

Eduardo Sánchez is still making films according to IMDB.

Lionsgate made the real money.

filmy

EDIT: About the actors... Heather Donahue has only done a few television roles and more low budget stuff as far as I know. Same goes for Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams. Neal Fredericks, the cinematographer, died in a plane crash.

 

[Spatula]

I'm never going to make a deal where I don't get the rights back (at least within 10 years), plus back end. I'll take a front-end pay cut for it too! Unless it's a complete cut... ugh.

 

[spinner]

Yeah, the word around the campfire was that the filmmakers of BW didn't really see any of those returns on their film which is really too bad.

Just as a sidebar, I knew of two films called "Rest Stop". There was the one that I know I saw in Sci-Fi channel and then there was one who was a friend on my MySpace page. The thing about tv is you get to change the channel...which I did after really trying to watch it....(shrug)

...it makes me wonder what my MySpace 'friend's film was like.....

-- spinner

 

[MelonDome]

Wow only 1 million? In your guys' opinion, if a big production company offered you 1 million, but had the potential of making hundreds of millions out of it, would you guys take the offer since beggars cant be choosers? or Would you try and negotiate?

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

If it were me...

Wow only 1 million? In your guys' opinion, if a big production company offered you 1 million, but had the potential of making hundreds of millions out of it, would you guys take the offer since beggars cant be choosers? or Would you try and negotiate?

I'd want some time to consider the offer and then during that time, I'd be hitting up other studios and attempt to create some kind of bidding war.

Unfortunately, most of the time this will only bite you in the ass... LOL. Most big offers come with a non-disclosure agreement but there are ways around that but you need a couple of key people in place which is why contacts are so important.

You do what you can to help up the offers but in the end, it's only worth as much as you can realistically get. Even with POTENTIAL, unless you can realize that potential on your own dime, you pretty much have to seriously consider the offer(s) you're getting.

You don't want to piss off the studio that gave you the initial offer... Having said that, so far, the most I've seen paid for an Indie film so far is between $9 Mil and $10 Mil.

Remember the digital video feature, TADPOLE? If I remember correctly, Harvey Weinstein paid $5 Mil for it. Not a bad film but $5 Mil? I'm sure it was because of the star power involved more than anything else. I liked it more than I like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT but even so -- on the face of it -- TBWT had more going for it overall.

I also understand the filmmakers were very hungry... In fact, they had sent TBWP out to a lot of people and nobody was interested.

At all.

Until a rep previewed it and got it into Sundance... That's when they amped up the story of the footage being real.

And I have to tell you... I saw it with a packed house two weeks after opening weekend and so far, in my entire life, no other film had people talking as much as BLAIR WITCH. The overwhelming majority of filmgoers sat in their seats that day (after the film ended) talking about how it was this true story... LOL.

I've never ever seen a film do that before... So many people thought it was real that it became this amazingly viral event which Lionsgate amped up even more...

So even though it was not that great of a film, it had people talking about it way before it hit the theaters... Even people who said they got headaches from watching the shaky video segments talked enough about that film to cause a few more people to go see it...

And so on and so on and so on... LOL.

Marketing GENIUS!

filmy

 

[StevenUK]

The film cost $22,000, but how much did the studio spend afterwards to promote and distribute it? You can spend a lot of money very quickly on promotion, probably not $240.5 million of course.

I suppose if all you're doing is making films (i.e. it's not a side line like me) a million dollars would seem like a very nice offer, though personally the dreamer in me would prefer to lose some money off the front end payment for a little cut of the back end, just incase.

Steven

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

Another option would be...

The film cost $22,000, but how much did the studio spend afterwards to promote and distribute it? You can spend a lot of money very quickly on promotion, probably not $240.5 million of course.

I suppose if all you're doing is making films (i.e. it's not a side line like me) a million dollars would seem like a very nice offer, though personally the dreamer in me would want prefer to lose some money off the front end payment for a little cut of the back end, just incase.

Steven

To try and let them allow you to come on board as a producer i.e., give up a little of the front end offer in order to get some of the back end.

As a producer, assuming that the film needed a lot of work (it did), you could actually help oversee all that spit and polish to get the film up to snuff before prints are pulled.

I believe (don't quote me) that P&A was $6.5 Mil to get up to snuff.

Not bad.

filmy

 

[Loud Orange Cat]

I believe I have a script like this: Original, low budget. I just need actors.