8 Insane Ways Movies Tried To Save Money

The "Blumhouse model" of movie-making is one that focuses on tightly-budgeted films that generate huge (when compared to their costs) returns.

The studio produced Paranormal Activity for a reported $15,000, and it went on to make over $190 million worldwide. Similarly, Get Out was made for $4.5 million, but earned the company over $250 million at the end of its run. It's an impressively effective business model that simply wouldn't work without some ruthless financial oversight, and some of the ways that founder Jason Blum keeps costs down are... curious, to say the least.

For the original Purge movie, writer-director James DeMonaco originally wanted $8 million as the film's overall budget, but Blum thought that was a bit too much, reducing it down to around $3 million. So, that $5 million had to be trimmed off somewhere, and lead actor Ethan Hawke was one of the many impacted by Blum's cost-cutting measures.

The actor was not given any perks for making the film, including no trailer, no driver, and no accommodation of any kind. Instead, he slept on Blum's couch for the duration of the shoot, which likely lasted for several weeks. Hawke (and many others) also took no upfront pay, instead gambling on the movie being a big hit, so they could take a slice of the profits.

Fortunately for everyone involved, that gamble paid off when the movie made almost $90 million worldwide. Ka-ching.