A modern-day equivalent of The Blair Witch Project would be nearly hard to pull off, and the social media discussion surrounding a film based on it would be just intolerable.
The production of Mad Max: Fury Road was estimated to have cost between $150 and $185 million, but George Miller had to go a long way to get there. He was a man doing experimental short films before he could make one of the classic bombastic action features.
We could have created a list of only the scary movies that met the requirements for inclusion. We tried for variety, so while Halloween is already the second, there will be a few more that we felt were worth including.
Since documentaries typically don't cost a lot of money, several successful ones might be included in this list of films that grossed 100 times their budget. We're choosing one of the most well-known documentaries.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a precursor to both found footage and slasher films. It was presented as a critique of the sensationalistic "if it bleeds, it leads" news of the day, even though it wasn't based on an actual story.
A huge phenomenon was Gone with the Wind. The epic film was a big smash in addition to winning Best Picture at the Oscars. After accounting for inflation, it continues to be the highest-grossing movie of all time. After accounting for 2022, it generated the equivalent of $4.2 billion.
George Lucas gained fame with Star Wars. On a $11 million budget, that film made $775.4 million and gave birth to an empire (in many respects). But how did Lucas contribute to earning the opportunity to realize his space opera? because he had achieved significant success in American Graffiti a few years prior.