Inexpensive ghosts reap box-office benefits
“Saw”, made for $1.2 million, grossed more than $55 million at the US box office in 2004 and spawned a franchise, leading a slew of films dubbed “torture porn” for the excessive use of gratuitous violence.
The trend produced the “Hostel” trilogy, 2006's “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” and 2008's “The Strangers”.
But while the “Saw” franchise initially brought in big money for movie studios - the second and third films each grossed more than $80 million at the domestic box office - the profits slowed by 2009, when the franchise's seventh and final film “Saw 3D:
The Final Chapter” was made for $20 million and grossed only $45 million.
“The torture porn stuff really played itself out, 'Saw' and 'Hostel', they were just too much. People want to be engaged with the story and not just grossed beyond imagination,” Bradley Jacobs, film editor at Us Weekly, told Reuters.
In comparison, the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, which relies on suspense and strange phenomena, has revamped the genre with a more cost-effective model since most of the scares are off-screen and on deliberately grainy footage, minimizing the need for costly special effects and action shots.
The second “Paranormal” film was shot for an estimated $3 million and made $84 million, while the third film, made for $5 million, has grossed more than $104 million in North America.
“The profitability of making a film for less than $5 million and hedging the bet of the financiers and the studios with a possible giant upside becomes extremely attractive,” Derrickson said.
“Sinister”, made for $3 million, has grossed $39 million after three weeks in US theaters. “Paranormal Activity 4”, which cost $5 million, has made more than $42 million since it opened on Oct. 19.
“Audiences realized that the feeling of suspense and the anticipation of horror is actually more emotionally impacting than graphic horror itself in these low-budget movies,” Derrickson said.
The “Paranormal Activity” franchise was released by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc, while Lions Gate Entertainment's Summit studio distributed “Sinister” as well as the “Saw” and “Hostel” films.
