"Paranormal Activity" has just surpassed "The Blair Witch Project" to become the most profitable movie ever.
The box office hit was made for less than $15,000 and as of Wednesday has grossed a whopping $65.1 million, TheWrap.com reported.
The movie's box office success has reaped a staggering 414,233 percent return on its initial investment.
"Paranormal" has gradually expanded from 12 to 33 to 160 to 760 to this weekend's 1,945 theaters - a move that some criticized - but one that Executive VP of Distribution for Paramount, Don Harris, credits as a key to the horror film's success.
"Everybody else thought we should be going faster than we were," he told TheWrap. "But I thought we were doing a pretty good job of seeding the ground as we went. I don't know that we would have done a lot more last weekend if we would have added a bunch of runs then."
The studio has reportedly spent less than $10 million to market the movie."
Keep in mind that this is a direct result of two different elements. One, its a horror film. And for now, the only genre even remotely capable of reaching this wide an audience. The second factor is, that a film can be DIY all it wants. Its in the film festival circuit stage that this kind of buzz is created, and distribution of the film from outside sources other than a website or blog takes over, thus, making deals with the "evil" system becomes the single most effective tool for maximizing any film's - DIY, Indiewood, Hollywood, etc - overall profit margin. Congrats to a true genius, and on of my personal heroes, director/producer Oren Peli.
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