Bruce Willis Predicted This $750K Found-Footage Horror Film Would Make Record Breaking 331 Times Profit
Actor Bruce Willis once predicted the success of a project he wasn’t even a part of. In 1993, directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez wanted to develop a movie that would help them gain recognition. They finally came up with a local myth known as the Blair Witch. They made a fictional story of three students, Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard who go to the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994 to find the Blair Witch. However, the three disappear, leaving behind their footage. As per the creators, the footage was found one year later and that’s what the viewers witnessed in the theatres.
Some call it “staged” but it was a massive hit at the box office. In 1993, Bruce Willis predicted this movie’s success on the sets of Pulp Fiction. The actor’s words were so accurate, almost as if he precisely knew what Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez were working on.
Bruce Willis predicted the success of The Blair Witch Project
Back in 1993, actor Bruce Willis talked about the future of the cinema on the sets of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. In the video, the actor accurately predicted the success of The Blair Witch Project, six years before its release. The actor said,
“Some day in the next five years someone’s gonna take one of these (handheld video camera) and make a feature film with it. They almost did it with, uh, Bob Roberts. Some kid, some 17-year-old kid, is gonna make this killer, drop-dead, poorly lit video movie that is gonna be the hippest thing. And then there’s gonna be hundreds of them everywhere. And they’re gonna cost about… $60,000.”
The actor was right about the budget as The Blair Witch Project‘s budget was initially between $35,000 and $60,000. The film had a final cost of $200,000–750,000, including all the post-production edits.
In 1993 on the set of Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino videotaped Bruce Willis predicting "The Blair Witch Project." pic.twitter.com/S1Cb86HJri
— Will McCrabb (@mccrabb_will) November 29, 2022
The directors of the movie, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, had zero expectations from the movie as they were planning to sell it for some money so they can work on a bigger project.
The Blair Witch Project earned just over $248 million
Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez were trying to make a movie to sell on the “video or the cable networks.” The duo didn’t expect the film to become a worldwide sensation. They said at the time,
“We were broke, so we just wanted it to sell it on video, maybe. We couldn’t even imagine a theatrical release. We were thinking maybe video or one of the cable networks would pick it up, give us a little money so that way we could go and make another movie. That was basically our expectations. Before we got accepted into Sundance we had a whole plan for in case we didn’t get in, you know? But luckily we got in.”
The movie was made on a very low budget, just using handheld cameras, as the story was about three students who decide to go to the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994 to film a documentary about a local myth known as the Blair Witch. Unfortunately, they disappear but their camera is discovered one year later.
The stars of the movie were declared “missing“
Since the creators of the film claimed that it was a “true story,” the stars of the movie, Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard were asked not to make any appearances in any other movies or TV shows. The creators distributed flyers at the Sundance Film Festival claiming that the students are “still missing.” The promotions of the movie were so convincing that Heather Donahue’s mother received sympathy cards from people.
The Blair Witch Project was a massive hit. It popularized the “found footage” genre and proved that a movie with a low budget can also become a massive hit at the box office. The movie can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: Twitter
