When you think of your favorite films, is the first thing that comes to your mind big blockbuster films in the industry, or low-budget films? Things like this separate the film industry and the quality of films, but most importantly, they move the industry forward.
During the modern era of film from the late 1970s and 1980s to the present, there was a subcategory of “B movies” that were introduced while either starting a franchise or later becoming cult classics. Those include franchises such as “Mad Max” (1979), “Rocky” (1976), The Breakfast Club (1985), Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980) and Napoleon Dynamite (2004). A lot of these movies had low budgets starting at $200,000, and topping out at $1 million. Nowadays, this would most likely be an under-budgeted film in 2025’s standards.
Something that disappeared from newer age movies is the intriguing plots that would be written and shown to the world with smaller budgets. As you see from the examples from these movies, one movie either became a franchise with more movies coming after it, or was a cult classic and popular for generations after that.
A big thing that changed with the new age of technology in this generation is the rise of at-home entertainment options through streaming services like Netflix. The decline in going to the movie theaters has also resulted in significantly lower attendance than before the pandemic. These are a culmination of all the factors that can determine the different types of film budgets.
The prices of big blockbuster hits that have made a lot of money from big budgets have taken over the film industry, while skyrocketing the budgets. Companies like Sony Studios, Marvel Studios and Disney have big budgets, unlimited ideas and qualified writers, making it nearly impossible to compete with them. There is a chance that these smaller budget movies are being driven out of town by the disconnect of the movie theaters, at-home entertainment options and bigger companies. The drive that these studios have is to take a risk and go all in on a bigger budget movie than multiple small budget movies.
From the start of the early years of superhero movies and then from 1939 to 1978, they have been popular, but coming to the newer age of films, they have become so popular that other movies aren’t getting chances at the big screen at all.
The change of having low-budget films not being given a chance means that movie ideas or concepts for something new will be diminished in the future. Without this, only bigger corporations and companies are allowed to be given the rights to decide who should be green-lit for a movie. In no way does that mean there are no low-budget movies that are popular, but the fewer chances are going to be taken on them when bigger companies just think they should invest in one big movie.
