Brewster's Millions To Make Movies

It doesn’t matter if it’s a studio movie or a independent or self-financed movie, money is ALWAYS tight. The issue is that people seem to make the production fit the budget. No matter what. If you were given $100 million to make a movie, chances are, you’d use that much. People must have a fiscal mentality. As if given money to make something, IF you don’t spend it, they’ll be convinced you can do more with less. Guess what? The reality is sequel budgets are about 90% certain you will get LESS money to make a movie. I know, I know…bullshit! It goes against any logic you can think of. Why would they spend LESS money to make a movie after the first one did so well. A few things…1) the star is most likely going to eat up a bulk of it 2) audiences will show up no matter what. 3) original director will want more money. You know, for the longest time, first time directors were given ten percent of the budget. If it were $100,000 to make, you get $10,000 of that. If the movie broke the bank, the director will have felt slighted by a tiny paycheck. In terms of a return, it’s also to stretch out the franchise money across many movies. Wring the wet rag.

I often say, that if someone gave me $50 million to make a movie I wouldn’t know what to do with it. People scoff “yeah, you would.” No. I wouldn’t. I’d pay people to make a movie. That’s not the same as making a movie. What would be the difference between handing $50 mil to a corporation to build a franchise machine, and say…the guy who gave me the $50 mil in the first place. I would be the middle man. And quite honestly, the sole person blamed if anything went wrong. So then I’d be a goat as well. That’s the odd balance of filmmaking. Doing what you love, care about vs. the commerce. The easiest, most heart touching thing you could do is the make a movie about your family. The HARDEST thing would be to make them interesting where people would pay to go see it.