‘The Purge’ hopes to make a killing for less

If you’re a movie studio with money to burn, summer is bonfire time.

Almost every week there’s a new $200-million-plus production — Warner Bros.’ “Man of Steel” and Paramount’s “World War Z” are the next budget-busters — and it costs almost $100 million more to market such films. All of which makes Universal Pictures’ “The Purge,” a dystopian thriller costing a little more than $3 million — with an ad campaign just above $20 million — look like Jonah among so many whales.

Art-house studios typically sprinkle the season with low-budget titles that debut in a handful of cities, yet rarely does a major studio throw such a modest movie into wide release smack dab in the year’s most competitive months. Next week’s raunchy comedy “This Is the End,” for example, cost $32.5 million — far less than the Superman reboot, for sure, but 10 times the price tag of “The Purge.”

PHOTOS: Summer Sneaks 2013

But Universal and “Purge” producer Jason Blum believe there’s a financial and creative model for productions as inexpensive as theirs, and they hope the movie could become one of the season’s more notable surprises. Social media traffic and audience tracking surveys suggest the film, opening late Thursday, could gross as much as $25 million in its debut weekend.

“We probably cost less than the catering budgets on every movie surrounding us. Seriously,” said the film’s writer and director, James DeMonaco, who has screenplay credits on “Assault on Precinct 13” and “The Negotiator.” “I don’t know what to feel — some of the time it’s totally terrifying. But it’s kind of cool that we’re being released in the middle of the summer.”

“The Purge” is an R-rated tale set in the near future; society has managed to eliminate crime 364 days per year by allowing the public one night of prosecution-free blood lust. Ethan Hawke stars as a suburban father whose security systems are designed to protect his family and neighbors from the government-sanctioned lawlessness, where everything — up to and including murder — is encouraged.

When his young son decides to shelter a homeless man being chased by some local residents, his pursuers lay siege to the home, quickly proving the fortifications somewhat less than reliable. The family must hold off the intruders until dawn, when the mayhem moratorium is reinstated.

“The Purge” is the first collaboration between Universal and Blum, who also was a producer on “Paranormal Activity,” “Insidious” and “Sinister.” Under a three-year deal announced in 2011, Blum has wide creative leeway to deliver genre movies costing $4 million or less.

PHOTOS: Hollywood backlot moments

Shot in 20 quick days in Chatsworth (with a couple of extra days for reshoots) last year, “The Purge” was made for a fraction of the typical Hollywood budget largely because almost everybody was paid the minimum amount allowed by Hollywood’s unions. In return for working on the cheap, they will get a bigger payday if the film performs well. On the film’s set, there were no cushy trailers for stars to cool their heels in — empty bedrooms doubled for dressing and makeup rooms — and no entourages or perks. “Your trailer looks like mine, and I don’t get one,” Blum tells the creative talent when they sign up.

“Everybody above the line basically works for free,” said Blum, referring to the actors and top filmmaking talent. “And when you work for free, you get total creative control.”

Universal had some input in casting and created the film’s marketing materials, but Blum and DeMonaco weren’t subjected to endless script notes and executives didn’t scrutinize the film’s daily footage, the way most studio productions are supervised. In a way, Blum said, that loose oversight creates a more collegial atmosphere because you’re not afraid of the studio, or of losing control of the production.

When “The Purge” was completed, Blum screened it for test audiences before he showed it to the studio. The previews suggested that Hawke’s character wasn’t quite likable enough, so DeMonaco cut a few lines of dialogue about how some victims of violence deserved their fate. He also decided he needed to add back a scene he’d scrapped for budget reasons showing Hawke more forcefully defending his family.

Universal executives liked the finished film so much they decided to schedule “The Purge” opposite Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson’s comedy “The Internship,” a 20th Century Fox film that cost about $58 million.

PHOTOS: Celebrities by The Times

Donna Langley, Universal’s co-chairman, said the deal with Blum was launched because the studio wanted to get back in the genre business, and at a low cost. While the studio was behind classic horror titles such as “Frankenstein” and “Dracula,” its more contemporary efforts within the realm were mostly unsuccessful, including flops with “The Wolfman” in 2010 and “The Thing” in 2011.

“We were looking for someone with a strong expertise in the thriller and horror genre,” Langley said. She said the studio is so attentive to maintaining its franchises (“Fast & Furious 6”), comedies (“Ted 2” is in development), animated movies (“Despicable Me 2” arrives July 3) and new big-budget endeavors (at year’s end, “47 Ronin”) that the studio doesn’t have the “bandwidth” to focus on low-budget fright flicks.

Some of Blum’s most recent films have recorded huge returns on investment. Made for about $15,000, the first “Paranormal Activity” in 2009 grossed more than $193 million worldwide; 2011’s “Insidious,” produced for about $1.5 million, grossed $97 million globally; and last year’s “Sinister,” budgeted at $3 million, grossed more than $77 million (sequels to all three films are in the works).

Part of Blum’s pitch to Universal is that because the movies are so cheap, the studio isn’t obligated to release them theatrically — they can go straight to DVD or VOD if executives wish. That can save millions in marketing expenses if the studio isn’t convinced the film will do well at the box office. Because Universal has guaranteed video and television distribution deals around the world, the studio can basically break even if the movie never makes it to the multiplex.

Langley said that one collaboration between the studio and Blum, Joe Johnston’s thriller “Not Safe for Work” with Max Minghella, will in fact bypass theaters and instead debut on video-on-demand platforms at some unspecified date.

“Some of my movies work, and some of them don’t,” Blum said. “I want to be able to say to the studio, ‘We missed, let’s go to VOD.’”

PHOTOS: Billion-dollar movie club

To improve his odds, the 44-year-old Blum doesn’t hire first-time directors; DeMonaco, 43, helmed the crime drama “Staten Island,” which also starred Hawke, four years ago. DeMonaco was then teamed with experienced producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller (2010’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street”), a cinematographer (Jacques Jouffret, a camera operator on the “Transformer” movies) and an editor (Peter Gvozdas, an assistant editor on “Pain & Gain”) from Michael Bay’s production company, Platinum Dunes, which shares screen credit with Blum’s Blumhouse Productions.

Despite the promise of creative autonomy, not everyone is initially thrilled working for wages a few steps up from pulling lattes at Starbucks. Yet because Blum operates independent of Universal, talent agents can’t call Langley and ask for more money for their actors or other clients.

DeMonaco said that he originally thought he needed about $10 million to film “The Purge” and was hoping he might get as much as $15 million.

Told that his budget with Blum would be about $3 million, the director hesitated.

“I thought I needed a lot more money,” said the director, who had developed a serial killer script with Blum years ago that was never made. “I didn’t know if it was possible” to make the film at that price, he said. “But it forces you to get very creative and say, ‘What do I really need’ — you can’t waste any time.” Counting all credits, “The Purge” isn’t even 90 minutes long.

Because the movies are intended to appeal to a definable audience and have so-called “sticky” marketing hooks — concepts that can be described in just a few words that are easily remembered — advertising budgets are a fraction of what they would be for other wide-release movies.

To support “The Purge,” Blum screened the movie to a dozen college campuses over two weeks in early May, and at a certain point the online buzz started feeding on itself, with Facebook likes and Twitter mentions surging in recent days. Universal is also promoting the film through traditional means such as billboards, television spots and print ads.

“The concept is very arresting,” said Blum. “People want to talk about it. The film gets under their skin.”

john.horn@latimes.com