I was trying to look this up but I can’t seem to Google it right, so I’ll ask for some help.
I was thinking about unions and I know in Hollywood everyone belongs to unions. So they have union standards and extras that have to join a union to say a line etc.
But then I got to thinking, there have to have been some movies made that had no union members involved in making them. Obviously this would mean that it’d have to be a low budget type of deal, that was made for a small sum and then took off commercially.
So I was looking for a movie shot in America, that was all non-union and made a lot of money or at least was famous. And I was looking for a commerical film intended to produce a profit, rather than a film shot as a documentary or as a school type project.
As you can see I wouldn’t know how to begin searching for such a film. Perhaps there are none? Or maybe you’d have to go back 50 years or something on a B-Film
I thought it was made with his money and his friends but looking at IMDB, I see that S. Epatha Merkerson is in it and I’m sure that she’s in SAG. It would be real hard to find a movie without any SAG members in it.
These are just guesses so don’t take it to the bank. I think there’s a good chance The Blair Witch Project might have been non-union. That’s the only successful post-1977 movie that might be non-union.
I think some of Roger Corman’s movies might have been non-union. Possibly Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack movies were non-union. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.
Just another guess, but what about Paranormal Activity? According to Box Office Mojo, $15,000 production budget, $100,000,000 domestic gross. Not earthshaking by Hollywood standards, but a solid return on investment.
To complicate the question, producers of very low budget films often get waivers that allow them to use both union and non-union actors at little or no pay.
Was Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog non-union, or just non-writers-union? I dunno if the directors’ guild, SAG, or any other unions had rules concerning internet content or not.
Well, Dr. Horrible certainly involved union actors, so it doesn’t meet all the OP’s criteria whether or not it was produced under a union contract. SAG and AFTRA both claim jurisdiction over “new media,” although the rules are different than those governing film and TV.