9 Movies That Were Improved By Having No Money

8. Chasing Amy

Considered by Kevin Smith to be his "comeback" picture (after his previous effort, Mallrats, flopped hard), Chasing Amy tells the story of the director's own sexual insecurities using a cast of relative unknowns. Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams had both been in Dazed and Confused (but little else), and the only thing Jason Lee had done was Mallrats.

So, Miramax was rightly concerned that Chasing Amy would end up picking their pockets just as Smith's previous endeavor had, and wanted to hedge their bets with a cast that included David Schwimmer, Drew Barrymore, and Jon Stewart. Smith fought them on the casting choices, insisting that his friends were a more ideal cast for the type of movie he was trying to make. To prove he was serious about his expectations for his film, Smith convinced the studio to give him just a fraction of the original budget ($250,000 instead of the initial $3 million) and let him make it the way he wanted. Then, if they liked it, Miramax could sign their name to it.

It ended up becoming one of Smith's more well-respected projects among critics, and Adams earned a Golden Globe nomination for her work. ...Could you imagine David Schwimmer saying a line like "Have you ever seen a nun call a small child a f--king c--t rag" or "The big bucks are in d--k and fart jokes" and not cringing yourself into a coma?