2. Peter Jackson - Bad Taste (1987) - $30,000
Before The Lord of the Rings trilogy guaranteed Peter Jackson a place in the Hall of Greatest Directors Ever, he was a semi-successful film director from New Zealand who's artistic vision hovered between 'artsy' (Heavenly Creatures) and 'fartsy' (The Frighteners), a Michael J. Fox paranormal serial killer movie and BrainDead, (aka Dead Alive), a zombie film that at one time held the record for most buckets of blood used in film and can best be summarized in two words that make it a must-see; Baby Zombie. Jackson was always going to be a famous film director, despite his obvious handicap of being born and raised in New Zealand which is pretty near as far away as you can get from Hollywood. To prove this, his first movie was the campy, eighties-esque horror Bad Taste, which he also wrote. It was movie about aliens who kill the people of a small village to use as filler for their intergalactic hamburger franchise and he was able to make it for about $30,000 New Zealand dollars, roughly equivalent to 10,000 sheep. Not exactly Sir Ian McKellan territory but it was a start. He then followed that straight to video epic with the 'much' safer sell Meet The Feebles, which was basically an X-rated Muppets movie. It's loosely the story of Heidi the Hippo who is the star of the show, but is being cheated on by her Walrus boyfriend who is having an affair with a cat. There's drugs and sex and homosexuality and a puppet who may have AIDS. One can only imagine Jackson thumbing through a copy of Fellowship of the Ring while watching dailies of a cat giving head to a walrus and thinking 'one day, this film will enable me to make Sauron into a giant flaming eyeball'. Which it did.