Maybe twice a year I see a popular tweet that laments the death of the mid budget movie. Recently it was a clip of Matt Damon eating chicken wings on the chicken wings show.

Matt Damon explains why they don't make movies like they used to. pic.twitter.com/BhWypzcsgQ

— Todd Spence (@Todd_Spence) August 21, 2022

It’s a good clip and it concisely describes the problem: we don’t make mid budget movies anymore because they’re too risky due to the fact that you must be a massive box office success to make your money back as there are no longer DVD sales.

I just watched Watcher recently though, and I loved it. It has the feel of those 90s and 2000s mid budget movies in scope and execution. It’s an hour and thirty minutes of a simple plot about an American couple that moves to Romania only to move into a neighborhood where a serial killer called The Spider has been cutting women’s heads off. The biggest difference between this and something similar that may have come out 20 years ago is that there’s not a massive star or famous director involved.

Watcher isn’t a mid budget movie. I don’t think so at least, but I figure if I can’t find the budget by Googling it, it’s probably under $5 million. 

It also probably didn’t make a ton at the box office. I googled that too and it looks like it pulled in $2 million, but I also figured it didn’t make a lot of money because the huge cineplex theater I go to showed it for about a week. I knew about the movie, I was excited to see it, I made plans to see it, then checked the schedule and it was gone.

There’s a million factors that determine why people go to the movies they go to; stars, directors, cool trailers. There’s also a million valid reasons that cause people to not go to a movie: the stars suck, the director sucks, the trailer sucks. But when people don’t go to a good movie, that is mostly the fault of marketing.

I have very little sympathy for marketing and marketers. Their job looks easy to me. The only thing in their way is a level of personal ethics. Most things can be marketed successfully by cynically preying on your customer’s insecurity. There’s currently a Verhoeven-esque company called Black Rifle Coffee. It’s just coffee. The thing that makes this coffee better is that it reminds you you’re not a pussy, and that people that drink different coffees are massive pussies. Meanwhile, America’s best candybar Take 5, goes uneaten because their wrapper looks terrible and the name is confusing. This is marketing. Hey, Take 5 here’s a free tip: change your name to Machine Gun Candy.

So when a good movie doesn’t do well the problem is marketing, a thing so easy, I (an idiot) just did it. 

That’s where my plan comes in: Just call movies “Mid Budget Thrillers.” Regardless of the actual budget, or even if it’s really a “thriller.”

Look at “indie rock” as an example. Accurate or not, I’m sure a good chunk of people would describe Coldplay as indie rock even though there’s nothing “indie” and barely “rock” about what they do. Because it doesn’t matter. “College rock” or “post punk” or any of those labels didn’t really connect with wider audiences, not sure why, but it doesn’t matter. People liked saying indie rock and it stuck.

People like saying Mid Budget Thriller so let’s just make it a genre regardless of what the movie is as long as it’s close enough. I’ll try and lay out some jumping off point guidelines.

– It’s a movie that probably has a crime in it. If not a crime, some kind of suspenseful situation.

– It’s not intended to be a franchise, although it may become one.

– It can be of any budget, but it can’t look super cheap or super expensive.

There you go, that’s a Mid Budget Thriller now. Just looking at what’s currently playing in theaters and we can re-market some stuff: Beast is a Mid Budget Thriller. So is The Invitation and Where the Crawdads Sing. Bodies Bodies Bodies counts too. Breaking? Not sure what it is, but I read a synopsis and it sounds kind of like John Q. so it probably counts.

I think some people are scared off from “small budget movies” but also, at some point, need a reprieve from the Iron Mans. This is the perfect sweet spot. When you call something a Mid Budget Thriller you get to support a non-MCU movie (essentially charity; makes you feel good about yourself) but not lower yourself to viewing something made by someone who is not rich. And perhaps most importantly, it won’t make you feel dumb like an “art house film” would.

Just because Watcher was yanked from theaters too early (my cineplex is still showing Jurassic Park 6) doesn’t mean future movies have to have the same fate. If you are a marketer reading this, I’m sorry I said your job looks easy. I know there’s other stuff involved like lunches and asking people to “make a viral video.” I just ask that you try and not let good movies go unseen. You’ve got a lot of power that most directors, producers, actors and writers don’t. In the meantime I have to keep writing 1,000 word things that ultimately just say: “Go check out Watcher, it’s on Shudder right now.”

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