Cheap and good

Cheap and good

In upcoming flick The Purge, starring Ethan Hawke and Game of Thrones actress Lena Headey, the US is a place of low crime and unemployment in 2022, thanks to an annual 12-hour "purge" in which all criminal activity is legal.

It's a bold concept and was amazingly popular with the US audience when it premiered in June, dethroning Fast & Furious 6 at the box office. That feat is even more amazing when you consider that The Purge was made with a budget of just US$3 million (S$3.8m).

But it's not too surprising considering the film comes from Blumhouse Productions, the same folks who gave the world the Paranormal Activity movies, the first of which made US$200 million worldwide on a US$15,000 budget.

Blumhouse founder Jason Blum, 43, has made very good business out of what he calls "inexpensive and high-concept" movies like Paranormal Activity, in which the haunting of a family is captured on hand-held and closedcircuit television cameras around their house.

"When we keep the price point relatively low, it allows us to take creative risks that higher budget movies are not able to take," he told FiRST over the phone from Los Angeles recently.

"We can bring up new ideas like we did in The Purge and Sinister, and not worry too much about whether they're going to fail."

Last year's Sinister, along with Dark Skies, were both produced by Blum on budgets hovering around the US$3 million mark.

The former made US$81 million at the box office while the latter, though universally panned, earned almost seven times its budget. Business

"It's always surprising when you make a movie for 3 cents and it does well, but that's our business," said Blum.

The Purge is already a bona fide hit. It took in US$36 million in its first weekend in the US and is closing in on Sinister's earnings.

Like Paranormal Activity, the action in The Purge happens almost entirely in one house. Every year during the purge, home security developer James (Hawke), his wife Mary (Headey) and their two teenage children (Adelaide Kane and Max Burkholder) stay indoors, protected by a state-of-the-art security system.

Of course, things go awry when their son Charlie (Burkholder) lets in a stranger who is being pursued by murderous college kids looking to get their kicks during the purge.

Blum thinks it is precisely because the movie is so un-fancy that it's done well with audiences. "What kind of camera you shoot with, special effects, all of that is secondary to (the) story," he said.

"The Purge is a very well-done movie about a very controversial issue."

Still, he recognises that while his movies are generally commercial successes, not all of them won over the critics. The Purge has got mixed reviews from critics unhappy about its lack of depth in exploring the issue of whether a tactic like the purge would really work.

"Definitely some of the critics I spoke to had mixed feelings, but most people have had a really emotional response and were troubled by the idea," said Blum, who is not about to let bad reviews stop him from forging ahead with his winning Hollywood formula.

"In the current state, US studios are not built to produce low-budget movies. Their only game in the world is making US$150 million movies."

Some, of course, have tanked spectacularly in the last few months.

The Lone Ranger, which starred Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer, was made on a budget of US$215 million, and has just managed to make US$217 million at the box office.

White House Down, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, has made US$131 million at the box office - short of its US$150 million budget. It's no surprise that Blum takes comfort in his business model.

"I'm passionate about my model for the movie business. I think we've found a little place where it's still healthy," he said.


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