[ganley]

The best movie I've (finally) seen in recent months was El Mariachi. He made that for like $8K. Assault on Precinct 13 (the original one): $150,000. The list goes on and on. The Way of the Gun, a more recent favorite of mine with a bunch of big actors in it: $8.5M.

Another factor might be exorbitant star salaries. However, I think that's a symptom, not the disease. The real problem is that Hollywood is greedy. They won't touch a $10M film with no big stars in it because it's not likely to make an 8-figure profit.

[dragonwriter]

Sounds like the real problem is that audiences disproportionately respond to big stars, so Hollywood disproportionately favors them.

[mark-r]

Not really. It's just that spending that amount of money on a movie makes you really risk averse; you go for the actor with the good resume rather than the brilliant newcomer with no track record.

[kbenson]

> The Way of the Gun

I'm fairly surprised that they were able to make that one so cheaply. Not only is it full of well known names, it was extremely well done (it's also a favorite of mine). I imagine most people involved didn't take their normal rate (or worked on residuals).