LIONSGATE TRYING OUT THEIR OWN (KINDA) MICROBUDGET INTIATIVE

This initiative makes me think of a prospector panning for gold.  Amidst all the muck, they hope to eventually unearth a nugget of gold...but it ain't gonna be that Anitchrist flick.  Craig Robinson deserves better.

I think Craig Robinson playing the devil is pretty inspired. The full premise is whatever- completely depends on the wit on the screenplay and if the world is built with any interesting texture. Don't know what would inspire cynicism about it though.

My concern is the premise.  If they had a good script, or were reasonably confident of getting a good script, I imagine they would have cast a "bigger" name and gone with a larger budget.  That's always the fear with these microbudget films, to be any good they have to have been great out-of-left-field ideas that somehow inexplicably failed to excite the studios enough to not get a moderate budget and a Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, or Adam Sandler.  With a strange premise such as the one for Rapturepalooza, the margin for error is pretty thin.

Fair enough. There's also the possibility they've selected a few stellar scripts to jump-start this program and get it off on the right foot- who knows? I sure don't.

Granted, 50% of it was Devin and Policar bitching back and forth, but we had a good thread going about this topic when Paramount jump started their (now kind of dead/rerouted) microbudget program. Wondering what people think these days...

It'd be great if the initiative was about taking stellar scripts that may be a little too out there for mainstream audiences and giving them a shot - with the trade being more creative freedom for a much smaller budget.  I'm just not sure there has been any indication that Lionsgate is thinking seriously about creative content and artistic originality rather than the bottom line.

What's difficult is pinpointing what ideas are best suited to microbudget filmmaking; the better the concept, the more I want it to have the necessary resources to maximize its potential.  Maybe the best type of film for this initiative might in fact be something like Rapturepalooza - a wonky premise, but a promising lead and the potential for a director with a unique perspective (though I don't know much about Middleditch, and his filmography is very undistinguished) .  Microbudgeting might be best used as a sort of middle ground between art house and commercial, if that makes any sense.  Commercial ideas that might catch on with wider audiences executed with art house sensibilities to distinguish them from more run-of-the-mill fare.

My main issue in regards to Rapturepalooza is that the premise seems like an unnecessary mashing together of two concepts: the post-apocalyptic film, and the twisted rom-com.  Is the Rapture part even necessary for the other idea to work?  And is the comedic romance part going to ruin what could be a great premise of Robinson's Antichrist negotiating post-Rapture Earth?  I think I'd rather see something more along the lines of Robinson as the Antichrist trying, with much difficulty, to set himself up as ruler in this world.  That idea may be a little too unoriginal though.