Paramount Launches new Micro-Budget Indie Label - INSURGE PICTURES

Thanks to the success of Paranormal Activity, Paramount Pictures is launching a new very indie film label. This new indie label is called Insurge Pictures and they will focus on making micro-budget type films. The new film division has $1 million dollars that will fund ten films budgeted at $100,000 each for its first year. 

I think this is an incredibly awesome film program, and it will be so cool to see if anything great comes out of it. It will allow for new filmmakers to break into the industry and open the doors to more new original content, where filmmakers will have to focus more on story than special effects, it will force people to be more creative. I'm sure there will be some interestingly bad films but there should be some really good ones as well. 

The film division is being headed by Amy Powell, and they are currently looking for filmmaking teams to produce a slate of projects for Paramount. They hope the movies will serve as a low budget proving ground for new talent and intend to release the movies theatrically. By doing this it will eliminate the need to buy films from film festivals, because all the films will come from within their own house.

The Insurge website has the following statement:

Aren’t you tired of being fed the same movies wrapped in different paper? 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.

Insurge Pictures is devoted to the distribution of micro-budget movies and we’re the little crew running it. We want to try something different and deconstruct the Hollywood system. We’re about to conduct an experiment and we’re building a team of mad scientists to help.

I couldn't agree more with that statement. The studio is going to develop an online community to fuel the initiative and will support their goals with additional elements that are still to be announced. Horror films, comedies and animated movies are among the projects the division is aiming to produce, according to a source, targeting moviegoers in the 13 - 34-year old age range. According to an inside source,

We want to build a community online to engage people in the filmmaking process. We want to open it up, engaging [fans] in the process and keeping them involved.

This seriously could be one of the best things that has happened to Hollywood in years, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they produce!

What do you think about this new Insurge Pictures?