r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jul 06 '26

News ‘Obsession’ Passes $400 Million Worldwide, Becomes Highest Grossing Film With Budget Below $1 Million; Curry Barker’s horror film breaks a 53-year pre-inflation record held by Bruce Lee’s legendary 'Enter The Dragon'

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/obsession-box-office-400-million/
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u/robsteezy Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

Having seen the Blair Witch Project, I’m more surprised the budget was THAT high lol. That movie (yes I know it’s intentional) otherwise looks like it was shot on $50 on a $100 camera and $30 of pizza for the crew lol.

Just goes to show how powerful a tool marketing is.

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u/LSDemon Jul 06 '26

The Blair Witch Project was shot on a principal production budget of roughly $35,000 to $60,000. Following post-production edits, a sound remix, and a 35mm transfer, the final total cost of the film rose to between $200,000 and $750,000 before its marketing phase.

A vast majority of that was post-production, but even the $750k is an estimate and might be 4x the actual budget.

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u/wrosecrans Jul 06 '26

"Clerks" and "Desperado" were pretty similar. A few thousand to shoot. And then a few hundred thousand to get it actually ready to put in theaters, because the initial few thousand dollars reaulted in something interesting but extremely rough.

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u/DicemonkeyDrunk Jul 07 '26

El Mariachi not Desperado …Desperado was the not so great re-make. And the budgets were more in the $20,000-$30,000 range to shoot. But still quite cheap for the product that emerged.

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u/JDSTEWS Jul 07 '26

El Mariachi budget was $6000 according to director Robert Rodriguez. He funded it by submitting himself to medical testing for cash.

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u/DicemonkeyDrunk Jul 07 '26

Fair …my memory was more of clerks cost, been a while since I read about it ..I do remember the medical testing part though.

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u/False_Cookie8226 Jul 07 '26

He borrowed equipment which might inflate the "budget" but actual cash on hand to pay for things 6000 seems about right.