PARK CITY — The average Hollywood movie costs $60 million to make these days, while the budget for the average independent movie — made outside the motion-picture industry — is more like $5 million.
And first-time filmmakers hoping to break into the industry often make movies in their hometowns for much less — borrowing money from friends and family, and maxing out everyone's credit cards.
Several thousand such movies were made last year, and 1,500 of them were submitted to the Sundance Film Festival for its two competitions, documentaries and dramatic features. But only 32 made the cut.
Sundance is recognized worldwide as the showcase for independents, but these days it takes more than a low budget to get into the festival.
You need stars. And, more likely than not, serious connections with Sundance officials.
Things have gotten so competitive that even an established filmmaker like Gurinder Chadha had doubts about getting her multicultural comedy/drama "What Cooking?" into the festival.
"I wouldn't say it was a given at all," said Chadha. "I was very nervous, honestly." Despite her trepidation, the film wound up being the festival's prestigious opening-night event.
Fortunately for her, the cast included big-name actresses like Julianna Margulies, Alfre Woodard, Joan Chen and Mercedes Ruehl. Which is a whole lot more than Kevin De Lullo and his movie can boast.
The Salt Lake filmmaker submitted his movie, a dramatic thriller called "Cage in Box Elder," to the Sundance Film Festival, only to be one of the more than 1,500 films that weren't chosen.
"I wasn't really surprised that it didn't get in," said De Lullo. "I was disappointed, obviously, but not surprised. I know how the game works — unless you've got stars or you're a big director or you've had something in before, chances are you're not going to get in."
Like it or not, that's become the nature of the beast that is Sundance.
Established in 1978 as the United States Film Festival, the event has grown to become the nation's biggest showcase for independent films.
Just not all of them.
"Would we like to show every film that's submitted to us? Yes. But that's just not possible. It's a nice dream, but there's just no way to make that happen," said festival co-director and programming chief Geoff Gilmore, who added that there were more than 1,500 feature-length films submitted to this year's event, all of them competing for a very limited number of screening slots.
In fact, in the past two years, Gilmore and other Sundance officials have cut back on the number of films shown at the festival — primarily to better serve the filmmakers and audiences there.
"Every year we hear that the festival has become too big and less intimate," Gilmore said. "So we've made a conscious effort to answer those criticisms — to put the attention back on the movies we are able to show."
In many cases, those who have gotten their films into Sundance have gone through certain procedures to get into the festival.
Tom Brown, whose bizarre horror slide show, "Das Clown," will be one of the short films shown at this year's Sundance event, is currently participating in the Sundance Screenwriting Lab.
"I was lucky to get into (the screenwriting lab). That was my big connection," said Brown, who is developing a script there for a feature-length comedy, "Pushing Dead."
What Chadha, De Lullo and Brown were all looking for from the festival amounts to the same thing: distribution and, hopefully, financial success. And the new benchmark for that has come to be personified by last year's Sundance smash "The Blair Witch Project." Made for less than $100,000, the horror mock-documentary earned more than $150 million at the box office in the United States alone, which makes it the biggest cost-to-profit hit in movie history.
For some of these filmmakers, part of their mission has already been accomplished. "Das Clown" will be shown on cable television stations Bravo and the Independent Film Channel in February. And Chadha has been fielding offers from distributors for her film.
For those like De Lullo, there are other options. Among them, the other, so-called "dance" festivals in Park City — including Slamdance, which was begun by filmmakers who were unable to get their works into Sundance.
Ironically, the "dance cards" for those festivals are full as well. Which still leaves thousands of independently made films out there in search of a showcase.
"The sheer number of submissions we've received in the past two years is amazing," said Slamdance executive director Peter Baxter. Of the nearly 2,000 feature-length entries Slamdance received, the festival was able to show about 75.
So what's a filmmaker of limited means supposed to do?
In De Lullo's case, it's paying for a screening and hoping someone shows up. "Cage in Box Elder" will play at Brewvies Cinema Pub in Salt Lake City on Saturday, and De Lullo has spent considerable time in Park City getting the word out about his low-budget (less than $50,000) film.
"You've got to do what you've got to do." This is the only time of year when all the movie company officials "are going to be here," he said, "so you've got to hope somebody will be interested."