The most profitable horror movie of all time was made on a shoestring budget of just $15,000 and ended up pulling in around $193 million at the box office and launching a huge franchise.
To be a tad cynical, the goal of movies isn't really to entertain the audience but instead to get their bums on cinema seats so the film makes as much money as possible.
While movies chase bigger and bigger box office hauls, when it comes down to cold hard cash what really matters at the end of the day is profit.
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Films can rake in massive amounts of money at the box office but end up not earning all that much thanks to expensive productions and marketing costs.
Take the upcoming Avatar sequel for example, it was so expensive to make that director James Cameron reckons it'll need to be one of the highest grossing films ever and make about $2 billion in cinemas if it's going to end up being a financial success.
That film both has to justify a massive budget, inflated in part due to hugely expensive underwater filming, as it has to make back its own costs and bankroll the next movie in sequence.
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With that in mind it makes sense that if you want to really make a profit from movies then perhaps rather you should be looking at keeping costs down rather than chasing record-breaking box office hauls.
That's why when it comes to the most profitable horror movie ever, Paranormal Activity takes the crown.
Made on a budget of just $15,000, the horror flick proved to be a huge hit at the box office after an innovative release plan which made use of viral marketing that invited people to go online and demand the movie be released in their local cinemas.
As a found footage movie without flashy special effects or a huge production crew, the film was easily able to make back its budget and then watch the money roll in.
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The franchise even went on to rake in $890 million from a combined movie budget of $28 million, that's some serious take home cash that pretty much any mega-blockbuster would be happy with.
Other horror movies like an adaptation of Stephen King's It might have made more money, but their budgets were much larger and resulted in less profit.
For the initial $15,000 the Paranormal Activity creators managed to make a film which took over $190 million at the box office and spawned a franchise that earned $890 million, even if those follow-up films never quite managed to reach the horrifying heights of the first one.
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Paranormal Activity did actually get a reboot recently, though the reviews did not reckon the latest film in the franchise was one worth spending your time or money on.
Topics: Film and TV, Money
Joe Harker