Paramount’s $1Million Annual Microbudget Films Plan Will Hopefully Give Rise To The Next Box Office Phenomenon

This year’s box office mega hit, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was made a few years ago with just a budget of under $15,000 but it went on to bank about $107 Million as of today with people across still demanding the movie to be shown at their local theaters. Some say director Oren Peli made a pact with the devil, I say he came up with one of the scariest films of all time. Paramount which at one point thought about remaking PARANORMAL ACTIVITY before releasing it as it was, wanted to give way for the next box office phenomenon and has come up with a decent plan to do so…

According to Variety, Paramount is launching an initiative that will spend $1 million annually to develop and produce microbudget films. It’s designed to place between 10 and 20 projects in development by the end of next year, with no individual budget topping $100,000.
There are 2 goals…
To increase the studio’s ability to find new voices and ideas.
To give the studio a more diverse portfolio of titles besides the usual Hollywood big budget franchises like Transformers and Star Trek.
But Paramount may not give all the these microbudget films a theatrical release, some of them may be bound for a possible remake treatment.
I usually don’t like remakes, but fact is…not every story out there is effective as PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, maybe the concept is initially intriguing but could better in the hands of another visionary filmmaker instead of the original creator.
So those of you Indie low budget filmmakers out there who think that Film Festivals are not fair channels anymore to get your work exposed out there, this could be an option, but remember, you’re working with a studio here, which means execs who would have the power to tweak your work into something else that’s not your own.