Dan’s Screenwriting School #4: Writing a big Superhero Script
You should be focused on writing a great script in a commercially proven genre at a low to medium-size budget. If you hand a big superhero script to an agent or manager they’re going to hand it back and say “I can’t sell this. You’re not a name and this is not a branded property.”
Hi Dan!
I was wondering, what do you call a big budget? a small one? or a medium one? Thank you
Good question, Will, as there can be various usages of those terms.
Usually you start with the designation of Studio vs. Indie. In the major studio world, $12-$30 mil budget is low, $40-$70 is medium and anything over $75 or $80 mil is generally viewed as big budget. Those are very broad designations and depend on the company but that seems like the broad consensus, to me.
There are less medium budget movies being made today than there were 10 years ago, for various financial reasons. Then there’s also “micro-budget” which a studio would say is under $1 or $2 mil but an indie might say is under $10,000!
In the Indie world, it’s probably about thus:
$15+ = Big
$2-12 = Medium
$1 mil and under = Low-Medium
$100k – $500k = Low
$10k – $99k = Micro
$1k – $9k = NO BUDGET!
That’s my general estimate. I wonder if a site like johnaugust.com would also have a breakdown? I hope that helps.
-Dan
Yes it helps a lot! Thanks Dan-