avatar vs paranormal activity
January 6th, 2010 • posts i've written
Paranormal Activity reportedly cost $15,000 to create. So far it’s netted $134 million globally. That’s a 9,000% return on investment.
Avatar cost $500 million to produce and took over a decade to invent the technologies needed to film it. Of course, in 17 days it has grossed $1 billion dollars and looks to overtake Titanic’s previous record of $1.8 billion.
Both are undeniable success stories. And both have the industry’s attention. It’s certainly only getting more difficult to question the sometimes-grating genius of James Cameron.
And for Paranormal Activity, the studio likes what it sees,
Paramount Pictures is one studio that has taken notice. Adam Goodman, president of the studio’s film group, announced recently that they will be launching a new division in the company to foster the production of films made for less than $100,000, costing an estimated $1 million annually, paid for out of Paramount’s existing production budget. The studio plans to finance up to 20 films per year, beginning in 2010.
In most things, there seems to be two ways to hedge your bets – to manage your risks – option 1: follow safely down the middle of the road (average movies at average costs) OR option 2: balance options on the extremes (a hundred Paranormal Activities for every Avatar). Financially and mathematically, at least on first blush, they sound like they’ll net the same result. But of course we know that’s not how things work in an attention economy.
People don’t like leaving the house for average. Oh, they might, and they sometimes do. But they don’t run telling their friends about how much they should go watch average. And when they can increasingly sit in their homes, in front of their TVs or their computers and download or stream exceptional, average has a snowball’s chance in hell (oh hey, two extremes again).
I’m sure this seems incredibly obvious. So why is that no brands I know of run their portfolio or marketing calendar this way?
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