Paramount Insurge 2.0


When big studios make noise about opening a new division to support unproven microbudget filmmakers, many newbie filmmakers get excited. Others, especially those who've been down the road of making smaller budget films with studios like Paramount (like me), are more skeptical.

Predictably, when hugely bureacratic Paramount recently launched a webpage touting a new division to be called Insurge, many green microbudget filmmakers took notice. But the manifesto on the original Insurge website sounded suspiciously like a microbudget opportunity created by people who hate (or, at least have thinly veiled contempt for) microbudget films. For example, the Insurge beta site said: "We want to find and distribute crazy, unpredictable, and hopefully awesome movies - movies that make you want to line up to see at your local theater with all your friends (and us). Movies that a big studio would never release because they’re too risky, too silly, and they don’t star Sandra Bullock.”

OK. Think about the words Insurge used to define a good microbudget film. "Crazy," "risky,""silly," and they wouldn't star Sandra Bullock (?). This is the best you can do? Suggesting we're crazy and silly and use actors unlike someone your parent studio would be delighted to be in business with? Thanks but I'll get my distribution elsewhere.

Well, apparently that original plan for Insurge has been revised (before even a penny went to any microbudget filmmakers). According to Anne Thompson in this July 6, 2010 blogpost from indieWIRE, the Insurge plan is now a bit more conventional.

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