Movie making is a risky business, and way more films actually lose money for studios than make money. And that means that funding their own projects is one of the riskiest ventures that a filmmaker can go on. But, sometimes, with big risk comes a big reward.
Directors can have very different reasons for funding their own movies, whether it's because they want to own the rights or because they simply can't get funding anywhere else. And between maxing out credit cards, selling their comic books, and taking acting jobs, these directors funded their own movies in very different ways too.
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola has been funding his own experimental movies for a while now. The celebrated filmmaker behind The Godfather and Apocalypse Now funded his most recent releases Twixt and Tetro with his own production company American Zoetrope. However, where those movies had micro budgets, Coppola is pulling out all the stops for his upcoming movie.
Though the director hasn't made a movie since 2011, he has been working towards a hopeful magnum opus and late-career masterpiece. Coppola will be throwing $120 million of his own money into the extortionate production of Megalopolis. While information about the movie is scarce, it's set in the future and is about New York City getting rebuilt after a catastrophic event.
M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan has had a rocky career, as he has directed both the best and worst movies of all time. And ever since the success of The Sixth Sense, he has been trying to replicate the shocking twist with each movie. However, he had somewhat of a comeback with The Visit, and the twist paid off.
The director followed with even more successes, including Split, Glass, and Old, all of which, according to Looper, was funded by Shyamalan himself. As it turns out, self-funding the movies was a great decision, as those films made a combined total of $600 million. But what's even more impressive is that the movies had a combined budget of less than $60 million.
Michael Bay
There are movie fans who would argue that Michael Bay doesn't care about movies, as his films being full of explosions and scantily clad women have become something of a running gag. However, there's a strong case to be made that he cares about filmmaking more than most other directors, as he funded one of the biggest scenes in Bad Boys.
According to Bullet Proof Action, Michael Bay paid for the airplane explosion in the finale of the movie, which was originally going to be cut due to the budget. Though Bay didn't fund the whole movie himself, it's admirable that he was willing to spend $25,000 of his own money to make the movie that much better.
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson is known for his three-hour epics, whether it's The Lord of the Rings or The Beatles: Get Back. However, before he was given the keys to the middle earth series, the director was one of the most interesting horror directors working in the industry.
One of his best pre-LOTR movies is Bad Taste, a low-budget horror movie that's more well-crafted than most blockbuster horrors. According to NZonline, the movie set him back $25,000 and four years of his life. The director not only funded the horror flick, but he also wrote, directed, edited, and starred in the film too.
Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith is so prolific that there has just recently been a documentary made about him. The director went from making a black and white hit comedy in his workplace to writing Superman movies and directing Bruce Willis. However, it's his earliest, more modest work that's the most beloved, the best of which is Clerks.
According to Den of Geek, the 1994 movie was funded entirely by Smith by maxing out his credit cards, spending all of his savings, and selling his credit cards. Given how much of a self-proclaimed nerd Smith is, it's clear which of those methods would have been the most heartbreaking.
Orson Welles
Orson Welles is one of the most influential film directors of all time, which is predominantly thanks to how Citizen Kane advanced the movie industry by years, both technologically and in terms of storytelling. However, compared to Kane, Othello, another Welles masterpiece, is shamefully overlooked.
But the movie almost didn't happen, as its Italian movie producer went bankrupt on the first day of shooting. According to The New York Times, Welles didn't want the project to fail, and he used his own money and took on more well-paid acting roles to keep the project from falling through.
Richard Linklater
Richard Linklater has become one of the most interesting and original filmmakers ever. Between directing a movie over the course of 12 years with Boyhood and popularizing rotoscoping A Scanner Darkly, few writer-directors are as creative as Linklater. And when it comes to geniuses like him, they'll find a way to bring their impossible ideas to life, even if it does risk bankruptcy.
According to The New York Times, Linklater brought his directorial debut to life with borrowed money and credit cards, just as Kevin Smith did it. It was a big risk, but that meant it had a big payoff, as Slackers has become a beloved cult classic.
George Lucas
Interestingly, when shooting A New Hope, nobody thought the film was going to be successful, and, according to Insider, even writer-director George Lucas thought the movie was doomed to fail. However, Lucas had the last laugh, as not only was the original a success, but the sequel was an even bigger success.
According to Inside The Magic, Lucas funded the entire sequel himself so he could have complete creative control, which is now ironic given how he sold the franchise to Disney. It was completely unprecedented at the time, as no filmmaker had ever funded such a big-budget blockbuster movie before.
Gareth Edwards
Edwards is best known for his big-budget spectacle sci-fi movies. Between Godzilla and Rogue One, which is one of the best team-on-a-mission movies, there's one thing that's evidently clear about Edwards, and that's his talent with special effects. That was clear from his very first film, the micro-budgeted Monsters.
According to Little White Lies, Monsters was mostly molded together in post-production. After Edwards put together the bare bones of a movie on a shoestring budget, a studio saw potential in the movie and threw $500,000 at Edwards to work on the effects.
Oren Peli
According to The Guardian, the movie had such a small budget of just $15,000, which was all funded by the director, Oren Peli. The movie had such a small budget that the film was even shot in the director's own home and principal photography was completed in just seven days.
And as the movie made more than $200 million at the worldwide box office, it became a phenomenon by making way more than 1000 times its budget. That means that in terms of box office gross, Peli is the most successful self-funded director in movie history.