Filmmaking / Directing : Films under 1 million by James Greasley

"El mariachi"(1992) Budget:$7,000 (estimated) Gross Cumulative Worldwide : $2,041,928

compared with: sequel:"Desperado" (1995) Budget:$7,000,000 (estimated)

Gross USA: $25,625,110

Basic difference:

(1) Do everything yourself screenplay/camera/post production

(2) Use family and friends for rest of crew and cast

and more:

https://www.hypable.com/10-block-buster-movies-with-tiny-budgets/

Single location, small cast ... you can make a film like Evil Dead with a small cast and one location and can make it for well under 1 million

Ryan Coogler made "Fruitvale station" for under $1M.

"Searching" $1M budget, box office gross $75M ++

@Dan Ryan Coogler did well for making Fruitvale Station for under one million. I saw it 2014 Sundance and remember film contained numerous public places, trains, police and guns.

I think a creative and SMALL team can make amazing contenet for very little money. Cast/crew salaries aside you can get very good camera/sound equipment for not that much money. Check out this article below on GH2 (<$1000) vs Red Scarlet ($16,000). Red is better but not 15 grand better. Also beg for locations.

https://www.eoshd.com/2012/01/red-scarlet-versus-panasonic-gh2/

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW. $650K. Broke even plus. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. $600K Made $250M. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. $450K. $194M.

One of my favorite examples of this concept is “Tangerine” by Sean Baker (I believe was available on Netflix), it was filmed for around $20k as I understand it.

“It Follows” - $ 1 million budget, $ 22 million gross.

TANGERINE had a $100K budget, made $1M theatrical plus $250K ancillary.

For iPhones, not bad.

Thanks everyone!!

Clerks was produced with a bit less than $28,000 mostly from max out cards

Hi James,

You should check this website: It gives the movie budget and how much each film made.

https://www.tvovermind.com/15-great-low-budget-movies-made-relative-kill...

Napoleon Dynamite was pretty low budget from what I heard.