In Hollywood, the closest thing to a sure bet is the micro-budgeted horror film. If you make a film cheaply enough, keep the gore and language low enough to earn a PG-13 rating, and craft an advertising campaign aimed at teens and stuffed with promises of jump-scares, you've got a pretty decent chance at making your money back. At the worst, they'll lose a couple of million bucks, most of which the studio will probably make up once home video sales are figured into the mix.
For instance, in theaters right now is Oculus, which has grossed a little more than $21 million on a $5 million budget. Once you take out the cut taken by theaters and add in advertising costs,* the film will probably lose a little money in its theatrical release. But for every film that incurs a modest loss you'll find one that makes a decent profit (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, budgeted at $5 million, grossed more than $86 million) and one or two a year that make a huge profit (Insidious: Chapter 2 grossed almost $162 million worldwide on a mere $5 million budget). I could easily rattle off another half-dozen films of this sort released in the last three years that earned studios eight figure profits.
Like I said: the closest thing to a sure bet in Hollywood. But I wonder how long it will take the studios to realize they have another sure thing right under their nose: The micro-budgeted Christian film.
For instance, this week saw the debut of Heaven Is for Real, which has grossed around $28 million in five days of release. With a budget of just $12 million, that means that even after the theaters take their cut the production budget has been earned back. Also in theaters is God's Not Dead, a film that cost just $2 million to make that has earned more than $48 million. Son of God has grossed almost $60 million on a reported $20 million budget.** Courageous and Fireproof both grossed around $34 million and both were made for a half-million bucks.
As an added bonus for the movie studios, these films are not only very cheap to produce, they're also very cheap to market. Rather than flooding the airwaves and buying up expensive television airtime in an effort to create national awareness, these films can be very tightly targeted to religious audiences and church groups. A little bit of outreach can go a very long way: I'll be honest, I'd never even heard of God's Not Dead until a few days before it was released when a fellow film critic gchatted me the trailer.
Why the studios aren't beating down the doors of the producers of these films in an effort to capitalize on this veritable goldmine is a mystery to me. All you need is someone who can competently make a movie and, perhaps most importantly, treat their audience with respect and you'll make a ton of money. There's an enormous untapped market here.
*Some remedial movie math: The production budget listed at sites like Box Office Mojo is only a portion of the cost of a major release (and in the case of these micro-budgeted horror films, typically a very small portion). For a huge film such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, studios may spend $100 million on advertising. For smaller films something like $20 to $30 million is more likely being spent. Additionally, the studios don't get 100 percent of the grosses from ticket sales; percentages vary, but you're safe assuming a 50/50 split between theaters and the studios.
**It's kind of hard to say what that film's budget is, exactly, as it was a two-hour film cobbled together from a 10-hour miniseries. Wikipedia says $20 million; I'll go with that.