How much does it cost to make a movie? $2,184.00

Chapter Two of my Indie-Film Journal ‘A Virus Ate My Movie!’

$2,184

“But,” Dave asks, “movies cost millions of dollars to make?”

“That’s after gross net deduction profit percentage deferment ten percent of the nut,” says Robert K. Bowfinger, aka Steve Martin. “Cash, every movie cost $2,184.”

If you haven’t seen Bowfinger (1999), I’d be totally ok with your putting this book down right now and going to watch it. It’s not perfect but it doesn’t have to be.

Steve Martin has nailed so many different aspects of the entertainment world that the truths in Bowfinger — especially as they relate to a low budget film — I’d put up there with Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood Shuffle, Swimming With Sharks, and the crazy doc EVERYONE should watch: Overnight.

Your movie costs what you have.

The sooner you accept that the sooner you’ll start shooting. Studios have limits, why shouldn’t you?

Oh, but if you only had $20-million you’d be set. Oh really? You’d like to have to explain every shot and second of your shooting to a board or to a producer or to a group of investors? What about when two or three of your $20 million is spent on one A-list star who hasn’t had a hit since before the writer’s strike? The…