From a Mockbuster Version of ‘The Odyssey’ to a ‘Jiu-Jitsu Nun’: How Producers Are Keeping the Low-Budget Film Market Alive Via Streaming and FAST Channels (and Even Lower Budgets)

The Asylum, a low-budget film company known for mockbusters and outlandish creature films, is adapting its business to streaming as DVD sales have fallen. Its $250,000 version of “The Odyssey” was released alongside a much more expensive studio film, and the company says it performed well, illustrating how smaller producers can still benefit from audiences’ interest in major releases.

The article describes a market built on making more films for slimmer returns, with ad-supported services such as Tubi, Roku and Pluto TV now central to the Asylum’s model. The company says its earlier “War of the Worlds”, made for $500,000 and released a day before the 2005 Tom Cruise film, sold about 100,000 DVDs. It also makes titles that echo current releases, while producers across the low-budget sector are using streaming, free ad-supported television channels and even lower budgets to stay afloat.