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Tiny Budget, Huge Success

1:16:08 recording · EN · 1 speaker

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Brief overview

Movie Mike ranks twelve tiny-budget films by return, reviews The Invite, and reacts to Avengers Doomsday.

  1. Creativity, not money, made these films profitableSaw was shot in 18 days around one bathroom on $1.2 million, and Halloween's Michael Myers mask reportedly cost $1.98.
  2. Word of mouth beats any marketing campaignMy Big Fat Greek Wedding grew every week, and Obsession is annihilating $200 to $250 million films like Supergirl this year.
  3. Doomsday's hype rests on the X-Men, not the old guardThor and Chris Evans feel like remnants of Endgame; Cyclops, Gambit versus Shang-Chi and the mutant storyline are what excite him.
Executive Summary AI
  • Movie Mike opens with 12 of the most profitable movies ever, which together cost about $10 million to make against the $65 to $85 million of a normal studio production, and ranks them by return on investment.2:09
  • The countdown runs from My Big Fat Greek Wedding ($5 million to $369 million, a 74x return) through Saw, Napoleon Dynamite, Rocky, Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mad Max, Night of the Living Dead, The Blair Witch Project and The Gallows, with horror dominating because it feeds off creativity rather than money.3:57
  • Obsession from 2026, made for $750,000 and earning over $430 million (570x), is his best modern example, and Paranormal Activity from 2009 tops the list at 900x on an initial $15,000 shoot.33:46
  • He gives The Invite, Olivia Wilde's $12 million remake of the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs starring her and Seth Rogen alongside Penelope Cruz and Ed Norton, four out of five for making one apartment and four characters feel big.44:41
  • In the trailer park he blind-reacts to the Avengers Doomsday trailer (out December 18th), worries that Thor and a returning Captain America feel like relived glory days, is most excited for the X-Men and Cyclops, and lands at a 4 out of 5 on hype.56:27
Key Quote
“It is scrappy filmmaking, and I love it.”
— Movie Mike8:27
Key Quote
“Rocky is the greatest underdog story of all time.”
— Movie Mike12:46
Key Quote
“And then I really love it when the genre changed and the zombies started to get more aggressive and faster because there is nothing scarier than a fast zombie.”
— Movie Mike27:48