Discuss the impact of funding on media products.
Having a lot of money put into or backing a film does not mean that it will succeed. There are many movies that have a low budget that still make it big, but there are also mega budget films that flop. Yes, money means better CGI, makeup, costumes, and some higher production value, but what really sells a movie is the storytelling, plot and characters. What does it mean to "make it big"? Usually it's how much money the movie makes versus how much it cost to create it, where in this case, the amount made exceeds the cost.
One movie that immediately comes to mind when thinking about the contrast between the cost to make a movie and how much it theatrically made is El Mariachi, an action film. It cost $7,000 (estimated) to make and on the opening weekend in the USA it made $312,528 as of the 28th of February 1993. That's already two more digits, but its overall gross in the USA comes to be $2,040,920, according to IMBd. Almost 300 times returned. This is a massive output compared to the input, making this movie successful. When I looked up exactly why it was so good, the critics from rottentomatoes.com said that it was due to the seamless editing, the good story telling and plot, along with the stunts. It cut out all the "fluff" and its low budget helped make it seem more realistic and engaging.
In the end, storytelling wins. El Mariachi had done something no one else had done before. Another low budget success would be The Blair Witch Project, a thriller. The Blair Witch Project also had done something that no one else had done before; it was a "found" film. From IMBd, its budget was $60,000 (estimated) and it made $1,512,054 on its opening weekend in the USA, July 18th, 1999. Its gross in the USA was $140,539,099, which is impressive, and worldwide it made $248,639,099. Thats almost 4,150 times returned! These two low budget movies go to show that you don't need a lot to make a great movie.
A movie that can go further to prove this point is the fantasy/action movie Dark Phoenix. Dark Phoenix had a lot going for it. It had the name of the X-Men series behind it and the main character was an actress that had a large following from Game of Thrones. The creators probably thought they would get a lot out of it, so they put a lot into it. Their budget was $200,000,000. But it "flopped." The story wasn't good enough, the acting wasn't good enough, and the CGI also fell flat. That cost the movie money. It made $32,828,348 its opening weekend, June 9th, 2019 and it made $65,845,974 total in the USA. Only the worldwide gross gave them profit: $252,442,974, according to IMBd. It got 1.26 times returned. Much less impressive than the 4,150 from before, but not much can be said to compare those two numbers. as it depends on the initial budget.
Of course, there are good movies that had a large budget and still "made it big," as it were. The movie Titanic is a great example of this. It also brought something new to the table, with it being a fictional story set during a real event. It had a good story, good characters, and good story telling. From IMBd, its estimated budget was $200,000,000, its opening weekend in the USA was $28,638,131, as of the 21st of December 1997. Its gross in the USA was $659,363,944 and. its cumulative worldwide gross was a whopping $2,194,439,542. The return was almost 11 times that large cost.
The total amount of money spent doesn't guarantee the total quality of the movie. Funding impacts movies in a lot of ways, but it's not all there is to making a good - or bad film. Most, if not all the times movies are watched, enjoyed, and shared is when the movie has good characters, plot and storytelling.
