Get the latest gossip

$200 million is too much to spend on a turkey – and now even Hollywood agrees: "As big-budget VFX blow-outs bomb at an alarming rate, more frugal films are turning huge profits. Is the blockbuster in its death throes?"

As big-budget VFX blow-outs bomb at an alarming rate, more frugal films are turning huge profits. Is the blockbuster in its death throes?

Ezra Miller and Michael Keaton in the big-budget bomb The Flash Credit: PA Media To add insult to injury, both were critically acclaimed, and went on to become awards season mainstays – a feat that, despite ill-conceived wheezes like the abortive Best Popular Film Oscar, the previous decade’s mega-productions had never pulled off. Since launching True Brit in November, Kamasa already has two features underway: Marching Powder, a drug-fuelled crime caper that reunites The Football Factory’s star and director, Danny Dyer and Nick Love, and an untitled London-set festive musical by Gurinder Chadha, with songs by Gary Barlow, loosely inspired by A Christmas Carol. Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers Credit: Seacia Pavao But within 10 years, executives had lost touch entirely with how those more creatively ambitious films worked: when Warner Independent was shut down in 2008, the parent studio was so bamboozled by an India-set drama Danny Boyle had just shot for them that they toyed with sending it straight to DVD.

Get the Android app