Good Low Budget and Independent Flicks
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 1, 2026 02:34
VIEWED: 28778
PAGE 10 of 30
The process of making Flicks
3 Budget Levels
Costs to Make an Indie
Keep the price low with overall Costs with actors, directors, script, writers, market producers, production crew, equipment, material, location, editing and visual effects, insurance and distribution
and general website blogs
https://philipbloom.net/blog/
https://www.cined.com/
https://www.filmmakingstuff.com/
https://www.criterion.com/
https://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/
https://blog.frame.io/
https://prolost.com/
https://www.filmschool.org/
https://www.learnaboutfilm.com/
https://www.rocketstock.com/blog/
https://johnaugust.com/
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/
https://filmcourage.com/blog/
https://johnbrawley.wordpress.com/
https://www.filmmakersacademy.com/
https://screencraft.org/screenwriting/
https://www.lessonsfromthescreenplay.com/blog
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I would have liked Screamers if they didn't give it the "Hollywood Ending Treatment".
It was based off of Philip K. Dick's AMAZING story Second Variety. I feel they did a good job for most of the movie based off of the low budget, but they screwed it all up and gave it a happy ending.
The end of Second Variety was DARK.
There was no budgetary reason for them to change this. It wouldn't have broken the bank to keep the story as it was written, nor would it have required some big special effects at the end. Just a simple conversation at the very end, and the realization from our hero how he just got tricked and about what he just unknowingly did to the people he was trying to save, and that there was no way for him to fix it as he was breathing his final breaths.
Long story short, Hollywood ALWAYS screwed up almost everything it touches. Even before they ruined everything that was once good with "The Message", they just changed things that shouldn't have ever been changed.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
‘Sound of Freedom’ outperforms ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘The Flash’ on 4th of July
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sound-freedom-outperforms-indiana-
jones-215413297.html
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
That Indiana Jones remake might also be defeated by Insidious The Red Door a Low-ish Budget supernatural horror film
a budget of $15-16 Million so it seems it has already broke even with its opening
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
That Indiana Jones remake might also be defeated by Insidious The Red Door a Low-ish Budget supernatural horror film
a budget of $15-16 Million so it seems it has already broke even with its opening
Remake? It wasn't a remake.
Yeah. I posted about Insidious beating it in the Indy 5 thread:
Quote:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Inexplicably, they're going to keep Indy 5 in 4,600 theaters for its second week.
Also, Bruce says that Insidious: The Red Door is going to take #1 this weekend.
His model has Sound of Freedom getting a 4th place showing, but he thinks it will take 3rd place behind Indy 5.
Though I'd love to see Sound of Freedom beat it this weekend, I will be happy seeing any movie take 1st place from Indy 5 this weekend, and hopefully into next week until Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One comes out early on the 12th. It would be hilarious watching an Indiana Jones movie with a $300 Million budget only have claim to 6 days at 1st place once the next Mission Impossible comes out.
He messed up Joy Ride. That took 5th place behind Elemental.
Good call in Insidious though. It almost made more last night than Indy 5, Sound of Freedom and Elemental combined.
I'm loving the fact that the $300 Million budget Indy 5 is going to go down in history as only being in 1st place in the theaters for 6 days total.
Those 4,600 theaters must have looked pretty empty last night.
--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Red Door fudged the numbers. They take credit for $5M of preview sales (likely midnight Thursday) on Thursday, but then also include those same $5M again on Friday - double counting. Red Door made about $10M on both Friday and Saturday.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
That Indiana Jones remake might also be defeated by Insidious The Red Door a Low-ish Budget supernatural horror film
a budget of $15-16 Million so it seems it has already broke even with its opening
Remake? It wasn't a remake.
Yeah. I posted about Insidious beating it in the Indy 5 thread:Quote:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Inexplicably, they're going to keep Indy 5 in 4,600 theaters for its second week.
Also, Bruce says that Insidious: The Red Door is going to take #1 this weekend.
His model has Sound of Freedom getting a 4th place showing, but he thinks it will take 3rd place behind Indy 5.
Though I'd love to see Sound of Freedom beat it this weekend, I will be happy seeing any movie take 1st place from Indy 5 this weekend, and hopefully into next week until Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One comes out early on the 12th. It would be hilarious watching an Indiana Jones movie with a $300 Million budget only have claim to 6 days at 1st place once the next Mission Impossible comes out.
He messed up Joy Ride. That took 5th place behind Elemental.
Good call in Insidious though. It almost made more last night than Indy 5, Sound of Freedom and Elemental combined.
I'm loving the fact that the $300 Million budget Indy 5 is going to go down in history as only being in 1st place in the theaters for 6 days total.
Those 4,600 theaters must have looked pretty empty last night.
--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Red Door fudged the numbers. They take credit for $5M of preview sales (likely midnight Thursday) on Thursday, but then also include those same $5M again on Friday - double counting. Red Door made about $10M on both Friday and Saturday.
Do you have proof of this? I don't see anything on The Numbers mentioning it, and if Bruce is adding $5M to Friday and double counting, that's the first I've ever seen him do so. Either that, or he always counts the preview numbers in the first Friday's numbers for every movie that comes out on a Friday and SoF just didn't have a benefit of having a "preview Monday" because they decided to release it on a Tuesday instead of a Friday. And if that's the case, it's not shady accounting... it's just how the accounting is always done, which in this unique case is a shame.
If that is how Bruce calculates Opening Friday, I'd like to know that with something showing that it is the case. It will be something I'd never considered and wasn't aware of before.
It definitely would explain why he never counts Thursday Preview money in with the total money earned. I always wondered why preview money wasn't counted in the Domestic Box Office totals.
--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Alright. I said "Double counted" and maybe that was imprecise.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:Do you have proof of this? I don't see anything on The Numbers mentioning it, and if Bruce is adding $5M to Friday and double counting, that's the first I've ever seen him do so. Either that, or he always counts the preview numbers in the first Friday's numbers for every movie that comes out on a Friday and SoF just didn't have a benefit of having a "preview Monday" because they decided to release it on a Tuesday instead of a Friday. And if that's the case, it's not shady accounting... it's just how the accounting is always done, which in this unique case is a shame.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Red Door fudged the numbers. They take credit for $5M of preview sales (likely midnight Thursday) on Thursday, but then also include those same $5M again on Friday - double counting. Red Door made about $10M on both Friday and Saturday.
If that is how Bruce calculates Opening Friday, I'd like to know that with something showing that it is the case. It will be something I'd never considered and wasn't aware of before.
It definitely would explain why he never counts Thursday Preview money in with the total money earned. I always wondered why preview money wasn't counted in the Domestic Box Office totals.
--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
I meant that they counted the same money on Thursday that they also counted again on Friday, but they didn't add the Thursday onto the total twice. Hope that makes sense.
On Thursday, The Numbers wants to give it headlines for the dollars for the Midnight showings. The midnight showings are technically Friday showings, because the films are embargoed until the Friday dates. That is exactly the reason for having Midnight Showings for opening shows. When the show time is 12:01 AM, then the dollars are likely handed to the Box Office on Thursday, before midnight.
On Friday, The Numbers only shows $15M for Friday, with a grand total of $15M. Which means the $5M posted as Thursday was just rolled into Friday's figure, and actual Friday only had $10M - about the same as on Saturday.
I saw no rationalizations written on the site about it, but the NUMBERS don't lie, just The Numbers - haha.
Hope that explains. I was not trying to be obtuse or deceptive. I had thought you already knew this from the posted data. You seem to follow the site a while, I haven't much.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:Alright. I said "Double counted" and maybe that was imprecise.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:Do you have proof of this? I don't see anything on The Numbers mentioning it, and if Bruce is adding $5M to Friday and double counting, that's the first I've ever seen him do so. Either that, or he always counts the preview numbers in the first Friday's numbers for every movie that comes out on a Friday and SoF just didn't have a benefit of having a "preview Monday" because they decided to release it on a Tuesday instead of a Friday. And if that's the case, it's not shady accounting... it's just how the accounting is always done, which in this unique case is a shame.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Red Door fudged the numbers. They take credit for $5M of preview sales (likely midnight Thursday) on Thursday, but then also include those same $5M again on Friday - double counting. Red Door made about $10M on both Friday and Saturday.
If that is how Bruce calculates Opening Friday, I'd like to know that with something showing that it is the case. It will be something I'd never considered and wasn't aware of before.
It definitely would explain why he never counts Thursday Preview money in with the total money earned. I always wondered why preview money wasn't counted in the Domestic Box Office totals.
--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
I meant that they counted the same money on Thursday that they also counted again on Friday, but they didn't add the Thursday onto the total twice. Hope that makes sense.
On Thursday, The Numbers wants to give it headlines for the dollars for the Midnight showings. The midnight showings are technically Friday showings, because the films are embargoed until the Friday dates. That is exactly the reason for having Midnight Showings for opening shows. When the show time is 12:01 AM, then the dollars are likely handed to the Box Office on Thursday, before midnight.
On Friday, The Numbers only shows $15M for Friday, with a grand total of $15M. Which means the $5M posted as Thursday was just rolled into Friday's figure, and actual Friday only had $10M - about the same as on Saturday.
I saw no rationalizations written on the site about it, but the NUMBERS don't lie, just The Numbers - haha.
Hope that explains. I was not trying to be obtuse or deceptive. I had thought you already knew this from the posted data. You seem to follow the site a while, I haven't much.
No... I'm glad you brought this up. Like I said, I always wondered why preview numbers were never counted in the total numbers before, and I also noticed that about 99 times out of 100 that Friday's numbers for a brand new movie are almost always higher than Saturday's numbers, which also didn't make sense to me since most folk work all day on Friday.
Just writing that reply to you last night I think I kind of worked out in my head what was going on. I just never did before because although I remember finding both of those things odd, I never really put any serious thought into them before.
I still would like to see it stated somewhere that this is what is going on for sure, but even without having that in writing somewhere I can't think of any other plausible way to explain it.
So yeah... Another good point you bring up there. But nothing really can be done about it since a Tuesday release doesn't get Monday night previews.
--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Alien Raiders (2008). Direct to DVD.
Production Budget: $5 Million
Run Time: 85 minutes
Good, but not great...
I won't give any spoilers on this in case anybody wants to see it. I'd never even heard of this until I recently saw a video review that likened it to The Thing, which is in my top 5 movies of all time. I'd add that it also has vibes of The Mist, since the entire movie is filmed in a grocery store (which I've mentioned before is another genre that I love, when an entire movie is filmed in one place).
The acting on this one is pretty good by most of the main characters, and that's probably where most of the budget went. None of the people in it are household names, but even a guy like me who doesn't watch much these days recognized quite a few of them, though I couldn't place any of them until I looked it up on IMDB after it was done. You've actors who had roles in TV shows like Castle, Six Feet Under, Dexter, Chuck & Sons of Anarchy.
Because of the whole The Thing-esque concept, they're able to do most of the movie just filming people, but the little amount of practical effects that were used in the movie look really good... Probably partially due to the lights being turned out earlier on in the movie, which was a plot device I think was just thrown in there to make the effect scenes look better than they actually were.
About 30-40 minutes in and I was REALLY enjoying this and thought I had uncovered a hidden gem of a flick I was going to recommend my brother and dad watch, but I feel that it fumbled by the 3rd act, when it seemed that characters were making dumb decisions leading up to an ending that I suspected was going to happen about halfway to 1 hour into it.
It wasn't a funny movie at all, but the handcuff scene made me laugh out loud.
Overall, I'd give it a positive rating. Especially with the micro-budget. Not something I'd recommend to mainstream audiences. Also not a "so bad it's good" movie since it wasn't actually bad. I'd recommend this one to B-Movie Horror/Sci-Fi enthusiasts and people who grew up watching whatever schlock skipped the theaters and went straight to the cable channels on weekend nights with their friends at sleepovers in the 80's and 90s.
6.5/10
--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME