Gerry Anderson Low Budget Feature Films

[wwp]

I'm an American fan of Gerry's works, and there is something I just can't understand. . . . in the late 1970's, throughout the 1980's, and even into the '90's. . . . why didn't Gerry follow the successful Roger Corman format by producing low-budget sci-fi films for direct to video and cable TV?

It seems to me, he could have easily made quality low-budget sci-fi movies, better than Roger Corman, Troma, Full Moon Entertainment, and other direct to video producers did, using traditional models and miniature FX, with new talent for the then booming home video and cable TV markets.

Why, I wonder, didn't he produce dozens of low-budget sci-fi films? I'm sure they would have been successful. Seems like he was too occupied with trying to sell TV series, but there surely was a golden opportunity for low-budget films at that time. Producers like Roger Corman proved that throughout the late 70's, 80's and into the '90's, and Corman generally made fun entertaining films for around $ 200,000.00 a piece. .. very doable for Gerry I'm sure. . . and a far cry from the multi-millions it takes to make a TV series. The video market was red hot, especially in the 1980's.

Gerry might have been able to recycle some sets from Space: 1999, props and models, certain costumes, etc., thus making various low-budget films even more affordable to shoot. Corman did this all the time.

[air terrainean]

Gerry did try to make a feature film (Five Star Five) after Space:1999 ended production, but the funding fell through. This is undoubtedly one of the main reasons he wasn't able to make movies in the same that Corman did in the States. Finding funding for movies in the UK has always been far more difficult than it has in America. I think Gerry may also not have had the same support from Lew Grade in the late 70s that he'd enjoyed earlier in his career, otherwise we may have seen ITC backing Gerry Anderson cinema productions.

[wwp]

Yes, but FIVE STAR FIVE still would have been a big, expensive, multi-million dollar movie. I'm wondering why Gerry didn't "adapt" the successful Roger Corman low-budget film methods, to produce dozens of direct-to-video and direct-to-cable films in the late 1970's and throughout the 1980s, etc., for budgets under $ 200,000.00.

[air terrainean]

I'm not sure how big a budget Five Star Five had, but I don't think it was huge. Again, even for smaller budget films in the UK, funding was difficult to find. Gerry had also had very little experience of raising film finance independently - and none of his previous feature films had been particularly successful. If he'd been based in America, the chances are he might have been able to find more opportunities.

[Silent Bob]

I used to have a script of Five Star Five and although the story was vey abitious its budget, if it had gone into production, i guess would have been quite low. Dont forget it was written no long after Star Wars hit the cinemas and its budget was only $4-5 million dollars.
Also in the early 80's the home video boom was taking off and cinemas were closing all over the country. In that climate independent UK producers had a hard time raising money for feature film production.