Movies cost a fortune to make. Sometimes, making a film takes millions of dollars, and big Hollywood studios often fund them.
Sometimes, having a big studio finance a film frustrates the filmmaker and leads to disaster. So, some filmmakers prefer to use their money to make a movie however they want.
Here’s a list of the worst and best movies not financed by the major studios.
8. Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)
Directed By Roger Christian
Budget: $73 Mil
Box Office: $29 Mil
The 1982 book by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, served as the basis for Battlefield Earth (also titled Take Back the Planet and subtitled on screen as A Saga of the Year 3000). The movie centers on an uprising against the Psychlos, extraterrestrial beings that had governed Earth for millennia.
The movie was a passion project for John Travolta, a devout Scientologist. He reduced his fee to $20 million and contributed $5 million.
Battlefield Earth was widely derided as a poorly acted, campy sci-fi film. The film’s poor reviews and word-of-mouth led to one of the most expensive box office bombs ever made.
7. Megalopolis (2024)
Directed By Francis Ford Coppola
Budget: $120 Mil
Box Office: $5 Mil (so far)
Megalopolis is a 2024 science fiction drama directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito. Set in the modern United States, the film follows architect Cesar Catilina as he clashes with corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero to rebuild New Rome as a futuristic utopia.
Coppola developed the film’s concept in 1977 and worked on it for decades. Disappointed with the studio structure, Coppola decided to finance it himself. He sold a section of his California winery to raise the $120 million needed to complete the picture.
After spending almost $140 million on the film, it debuted to an estimated $4 million in weekend ticket sales. Rotten Tomatoes has 47% positive reviews for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, giving it a rotten score. It opened sixth at the box office. There’s little hope that Coppola will make any of his money back, but thankfully, he’s a rich white man with a history of abuse, so he’ll bounce back.
6. Riddick (2013)
Directed By David Twohy
Budget: $38 Mil
Box Office: $94 Mil
Based on the Jim and Ken Wheat character Richard B. Riddick, David Twohy wrote and directed the science fiction action movie Riddick in 2013. It follows Pitch Black (2000) and The Chronicles of Riddick (2004). It’s the third movie in the “Chronicles of Riddick” series. Vin Diesel returns as the infamous killer Riddick, who links up with mercenaries to escape a more significant threat.
Pitch Black was a huge surprise hit, and it wasn’t long before the studio decided to create another movie based on Riddick’s character. Unfortunately, the $120 million sequel sucked and bombed at the box office. Nevertheless, Diesel insisted they make another film, saying, “Everyone knows I love the Riddick character, and I’m always working on it.” The studio dragged its feet. So Diesel acquired the rights to the Riddick character and franchise in 2006 in exchange for a brief appearance in Universal Pictures’ The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. This was back when Diesel insisted he was never going to return. “I had to leverage my house,” Diesel added, explaining that he was forced to mortgage his home, take out loans, and spend most of his savings on the film’s production since they lacked the funds to shoot the entire movie.
Unfortunately, while the movie was considered better than the last one, it barely made its money back. On January 14, 2014, Riddick was released on DVD and Blu-ray. It was a surprise hit and grossed an additional $23 million through domestic DVD and Blu-ray sales. So, the studio may be making another sequel called Riddick: Furya. Whether he becomes a homeless guy to finance it remains to be seen.
5 . Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Directed By Luc Besson
Budget: $223 Mil
Box Office: $215 Mil
Luc Besson wrote and directed Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017). It’s based on the famous French science fiction comics series Valérian and Laureline, written by Pierre Christin, illustrated by Jean-Claude Mézières, and published by Dargaud: Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne star as Valerian and Laureline, respectively. Besson privately and independently funded the movie. It is the most costly European film ever made, with a production budget estimated at $223 million, and the most expensive independent film ever created.
Even though Luc Besson grew up loving the Valerian comics, he didn’t give much thought to making a movie out of them until he worked on The Fifth Element. He was nervous the film couldn’t be made because of the high aliens-to-humans ratio, but Avatar proved it could be done. Besson took seven years to conceive, $180 million to produce, and nearly two years to edit “Valerian.” However, the most astounding statistical point is the number of major Hollywood studios engaged with the movie: none. With $40.5 million in revenue in the US and Canada and $184.7 million abroad (including $36.8 million in France), Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets brought in $225.2 million globally. Having spent about $180 million on production, the movie would have needed to make $400 million globally to break even and be worthy of a follow-up.
It turns out that making a movie based on a comic from France that most Americans don’t know about wasn’t the wisest move. The studios tried to tell him, but Besson learned the hard way.
4. Glass (2019)
Directed By M. Night Shyamalan
Budget: $20 Mil
Box Office: $246 Mil
M. Night Shyamalan is the writer and director of the 2019 superhero movie Glass. It is the third and last part of the Unbreakable trilogy and a crossover and sequel to Shyamalan’s earlier films Unbreakable (2000) and Split (2016). More on that later.
In the movie, David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) are taken prisoner and put with Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) in a mental institution. There, they debate whether or not their superhuman abilities are real.
He borrowed $5 million against his vast fortune to finance The Visit, a taut little found-footage horror movie that ultimately grossed $98 million. Shyamalan then went all out with Glass, financing it again with the proceeds from his previous two films and loans from his real estate.
The movie grossed an impressive $247 million globally. Deadline Hollywood determined it turned a $68 million profit after deducting all costs and receipts. But the reviews were savage.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film gets an approval rating of 36% or “Certified Rotten.” David Ehrlich of IndieWire described it as the biggest letdown of Shyamalan’s career. The director later acknowledged that Glass’ unfavorable reviews made him cry. Did he cry over his lost money? We don’t know.
3. Primer (2004)
Directed By Shane Carruth
Budget: $7,000
Box Office: $841,926
The accidental discovery of time travel is the subject of the 2004 indie science fiction film Primer. In addition to starring with David Sullivan, Shane Carruth made his feature film debut as the writer, director, producer, editor, and composer.
We often refer to low-budget movies like 10 Cloverfield Lane, but a true classic would be the time-traveling picture Primer, which was produced for an astonishingly small $7,000. Creator Shane Carruth said it “was just five of us running around with the camera in Dallas, Texas.”
Primer had a limited release but made over $800,000. While it didn’t make a ton of money, it was lauded by critics. Dennis Lim of The Village Voice described it as “the freshest thing the genre has seen since 2001.”
2. Split (2017)
Directed By M. Night Shyamalan
Budget: $9 Mil
Box Office: $246 Mil
Split is a 2016 psychological thriller film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Betty Buckley. The film follows a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder (or “Split personality”) who imprisons three teenage girls in an underground facility.
After a string of box office failures, Shyamalan had a hit with his self-funded horror film The Visit, which made almost $100 million. He went all in, self-funding his next movie, Split, which took $9 million to make but ended up being an even greater smash, grossing close to $280 million globally.
Shyamalan’s next film, Glass, was panned, but Knock at the Cabin did okay. Old, his subsequent feature, didn’t do as well at the box office as previous Shyamalan productions. His latest film, Trap, performed poorly, too. Maybe Shyamalan’s career is dead, but he doesn’t know it.
1. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1981)
Directed By Irvin Kershner
Budget: $30.5 Mil
Box Office: $549 Mil
Lucas considered selling the sequel to 20th Century Fox for a profit percentage but was too invested in the project to entrust it to others.
He funded the production independently, using proceeds from Star Wars and a loan to cover the budget. Lucas made a lot of money from the arrangement but feared losing everything if the sequel didn’t work out.
The reviews for the sequel were mixed, but it won multiple technical awards, from Oscars to Grammys. It also made almost half a billion at the box office and cemented the franchise for decades. Lucas rolled the dice and won the house.
Which is your favorite self-financed sci-fi movie? Are there any we missed?
