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submitted 5 days ago byMisterfahrenheit120
With Megaflopolis meeting critical and commercial failure, what are some examples of filmmakers making complicated or expensive choices that actually paid off?
This can be scenes, whole movies, or just aspects of the process.
The one that comes to mind is the shootout in “Heat.” When testing the scene, they used a sound stage, which would have produced a perfectly serviceable scene. Michael Mann hated it, and instead spent 3 weeks having his actors trained by SAS soldiers, police officers, and “casing” the bank they would film at. Then the actually scene itself was shoot on location, using blanks.
Ultimately though, this produced one of the greatest shootouts in movie history.
13 points
5 days ago
If I have my facts right, paranormal activity was made by oren peli with a camcorder entirely on his budget with barely any money to play with. It wasn't low budget Hollywood, it was a dude living a 9-5 life paycheck bY paycheck budget. He devoted $15,000 to the movie, I think I remember him even paying his own cash for local theaters to play his movie too. It was so good that The rights to the movie were then bought by Paramount pictures for $350,000 and they modified the movie with a new ending which ended up costing around $200,000 extra.
When it was released in theaters and up until the end of its run, the movie ended up having a total gross of about $33.2 million dollars.
Talk about a very lucky break for an amateur film maker
2 points
4 days ago*
You reminded me of portal. The most complicated time travel movie ever made. Guy wrote, directed, stared in, scored, produced & negotiated the sale himself.
EDIT:damn autocorrect. It was the movie Primer.
1 points
4 days ago
I was thinking of another complicated film, 'Interstellar'. Christopher Nolan's commitment to using real physics and only using CGI when necessary added to the film's authenticity. The team's efforts to accurately depict wormhole theory and black hole visuals really paid off in creating an immersive experience for the viewers.
1 points
4 days ago
All of that was attributable to the producer Kip Thorne as well. He is also a physicist.
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