10 Movies Made With Shockingly Low Budgets

Horror movies do not typically cost much to make since the budget tends to pay more for gory effects than anything else. When a horror movie brings in a big star or leans towards a huge effects budget, it's usually a sequel made long after the original.

For those freshman films in a franchise, the costs are often much lower, but they still tend to run around $10 to $20 million depending on how much they rely on special effects, salaries, and post-production work. For The Purge, which was a movie that grossed $89 million and launched a franchise, the cost was only $3 million.

It's surprising the film was so cheap to make considering it starred Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, but they kept their salary demands out of it to make the movie, which according to Hawke had "No trailer, no driver, no BS, just a great role, a great director."

Hawke, Headey, and the rest of the cast took nothing up front for the film and agreed only to take an undisclosed percentage of the profits. With such a low cost in terms of salaries, which normally would have been much higher, The Purge was able to be made for almost nothing.