Joker

@MongoLloyd said:

Joker

While Joker certainly is risk taking and I love that it got made, it's not the kind of original I meant. I meant completely invented by the filmmakers and having no ties to any existing property.

Brad Pitt

@acontributor said:

There are lots. Too many to name.

So yeah, while I do think studios rely a little too much on franchises, the original blockbuster is far from dead and forgotten. I don't think the situation is as bad as people make out.

@acontributor said:

Passengers starring Jennifer Lawrence and Criss Pratt comes to mind. Then again maybe that wasn't exactly high budget with pretty much the whole movie filmed on one set and with only a few actors. So you should define high budget. According to IMDB its budget was 110 million which seems high.

I would definitely say 110 million is a high budget film. It may pale in comparison to the average Marvel film budget of around 180 million, but that's because these franchise films have excruciatingly high budgets. And they fill every second with massive CGI driven action, special effects and huge, elaborate sets. You don't need to go that far to make a good blockbuster.

The average big blockbuster of yesteryear was around 70 million and I realise you have to take into account inflation but still, 180 million today is not the equivalent of 70 million back then. That is an uber-blockbuster. And it does not mean that the likes of Passengers and Ad Astra are not high budget blockbusters.

Jurassic Park was seen as groundbreaking in terms of special effects and that cost 63 million.

Avengers: Endgame cost 356 million.

It reminded me of the late 90s, early 2000s movies that had proper budgets, but were aimed at either a genre audience, or grown ups...

I know it's a different genre, but a movie like What Lies Beneath (2000), had a proper budget at the time... today, it would be made for around $5 million by Blumehouse, with the lead actors taking a % of profits, or not made at all...

I'd love to see more of this... Give a decent director 75-100mm, with a good script & lead and see what they can come up with...

@CheekyMonkey said:

It reminded me of the late 90s, early 2000s movies that had proper budgets, but were aimed at either a genre audience, or grown ups...

I know it's a different genre, but a movie like What Lies Beneath (2000), had a proper budget at the time... today, it would be made for around $5 million by Blumehouse, with the lead actors taking a % of profits, or not made at all...

I'd love to see more of this... Give a decent director 75-100mm, with a good script & lead and see what they can come up with...

I like the way Blumhouse makes films too. Upgrade looks way more expensive than it's 5 million would suggest.

Yeah... Blumhouse is a godsend to genre movies (horror & thrillers)... Allows the directors to experiment

Annihilation comes to mind. Or Wandering Earth, a Chinese film that became a huge blockbuster in Asia.

Annihilation cost 40 million, so I probably wouldn't call it high budget. Still, it's great a film like that got made. Haven't seen Wandering Earth but sounds interesting.

Inception and Miami Vice? Yeah, I guess so. I don't really think of them as art films in quite the same way as James Gray's films. He has a very specific arty style that many would find inaccessible. Like I don't think of Memento or Manhunter as art films in the same way as Two Lovers or The Yards. I tend to think of Inception more as a complex blockbuster than art film and Miami Vice? I'm not really sure what exactly that was trying to achieve. Depends on the way you look at it I guess, so you're not wrong.