Stephen Follows, a researcher who does extensive reporting on the film industry recently stated, "Over the past two decades (1999-2018) I found 37,472 feature films made in the US. Only 5.7% were made or released by one of the six five major Hollywood Studios, meaning that 94.3% were independent films."

Source: https://stephenfollows.com/what-percentage-of-independent-films-are-profitable/

Follows then compared Indie vs Studio Films, and not great news, Studio films show a higher rate of profitability than Indie Films. OUCH! 

He then goes to break out Indie Films by Genre, and that's where we start to see some good news. Independent horror films show a slight improvement in profitability. Adventure and Romance follow, with sports and historical showing the poorest performance. 

Which is too bad because sports movies are some of my favorites of all time (I'm talking to you Remember the Titans and The Blind Side!). 

Time to BEAT the Odds! 

This is why we created FilmProposals, our website and ALL the tools and templates we offer. We want YOU and YOUR FILM in the profitability category and what we teach is based on 1000s of prior filmmaker successes! So while this article may seem a bit negative, we offer 100s of pages of more positive Indie Filmmaking Experiences to help you overcome the odds.