Lesson 3: Stop Trying to Make Your Dream Movie First
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen over my 25 years in the film industry is filmmakers trying to skip ten years of their career.
Everybody wants to make the $5 million movie, the historical epic, or the science fiction film that requires dozens of locations, hundreds of visual effects shots, and an A-list cast. Then they’re frustrated when nobody wants to finance it.
Whenever someone tells me their first feature is budgeted at one or two million dollars, I usually ask the same question: Why? Is that because a line producer has actually broken down the screenplay and determined that’s what it will cost? Or is it simply a number that sounded reasonable? There’s a big difference between those two answers.
The reality is that budgets aren’t creative writing exercises. They’re business plans. Every dollar you add to a budget increases the risk for investors and makes the project more difficult to finance. If your screenplay can realistically be produced for $300,000 instead of $1.5 million, you’ve dramatically increased the odds that someone will actually write the check. You’ve also increased the potential upside if the film succeeds.
Over the years, I’ve noticed a common pattern. Too many filmmakers are trying to run a marathon before they’ve even walked a mile. Everyone wants to jump straight to the finish line. They want the studio movie, the theatrical release, the A-list cast, and the multi-million dollar budget before they’ve ever completed a feature. That’s simply not how most successful careers are built.
My first feature film cost about $6,000. Was it perfect? Not even close. But it taught me more than any screenwriting book, producing seminar, or film school class ever could. More importantly, it proved that I could finish a feature film. That one project led to another. Those projects led to bigger budgets, better relationships, more trust, and eventually much larger opportunities. That’s how careers are built.
Today’s marketplace rewards filmmakers who understand efficiency. Streamers aren’t buying films the way they were just a few years ago. Independent distributors are more selective. Investors are asking tougher questions before writing checks. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dream big. It means you should be strategic.
Genres matter. Horror continues to perform well because audiences consistently show up for it, and it can often be produced on a reasonable budget. Contained thrillers are another great example. Family films continue to have strong demand when they’re done well. None of those genres succeed because they’re inexpensive. They succeed because they’re compelling stories that don’t require enormous budgets to entertain an audience.
Your audience doesn’t care how much your movie cost. They care whether they enjoyed watching it.
I’ve watched filmmakers spend five or ten years trying to raise millions of dollars for one screenplay, only to have nothing to show for it at the end of that time. Meanwhile, another filmmaker spent those same years making three smaller features, learning the craft, building relationships, developing an audience, and creating a track record. Guess which filmmaker investors are more likely to back on the next project?
Completion builds credibility.
Every finished project tells future investors, producers, actors, and collaborators that you’re someone who finishes what you start. That’s worth far more than another screenplay sitting on a hard drive waiting for the perfect opportunity.
None of this means you should abandon your dream project. Quite the opposite. Protect it. Keep developing it. Let it grow as you grow. But don’t let that one screenplay become the reason you never make anything else.
I have projects I’ve wanted to make for years. One of them is Terminal Kill, an action thriller I’ve been developing for nearly two decades. We came very close to making it before COVID shut everything down. Instead of letting it sit on a shelf, I adapted it into a 216-page graphic novel. The project is still alive. It’s still moving forward. It simply took a different path than I originally expected.
That’s another lesson filmmakers need to understand. Progress doesn’t always look the way you imagined it would. Sometimes the path to getting a project made isn’t a straight line. Sometimes it’s a series of smaller steps that eventually lead you to the same destination.
So stop worrying about making your biggest movie first.
Make your next movie.
Finish it.
Learn from it.
Build relationships because of it.
Then go make another one.
That’s how careers are built. It’s certainly how mine was built, and after 25 years working across nearly every side of this industry, I’ve seen that same path repeated over and over again.