Likewise, while Paramount was crushing it in the mid-to-late 2000s with tentpoles, they could also push Failure to Launch to $130 million on a $50 million budget or the $25 million Cloverfield to $173 million.
Those were, of course, star-driven, high-concept, adult-skewing (while mostly kid-friendly) movie-movies that were often more profitable than all but the biggest blockbuster toons or successful tentpoles. While Disney was struggling with live-action tentpoles for much of the 2000’s (save for Pirates of the Caribbean), they could still make big bucks from “regular movies” like The Proposal ($317 million on a $40 million budget in 2009), Wild Hogs ($253 million/$60 million in 2007) and Bringing Down the House ($165 million/$33 million in 2003).
