We’ve Created a Monster! explains how the acquisitions guys from the Sci Fi channel became B-movie producers:
Cannella & Co. got into the monster business only after they became frustrated with the quality of movies they were buying from independent producers. As acquisitions director for Sci Fi, Cannella was screening hundreds of films a year. His conclusion: He and his number-crunching friends could do better. [...] Hammer gave the group the go-ahead to make one original film in 2002, on the condition that it didn’t interfere with their regular work. Last year, they produced a few more. It was soon clear that their movies were outscoring the independently produced features they purchased.
Their rules for making a monster movie:
The first rule: Show the monster. The failure of independently produced features to give ample air time to monsters was what drove the Sci Fi Channel to make its own movies in the first place, and the need for frequent shots of the creature remains an article of faith.
[...]
The second rule: Put the monster in the title. “Boa vs. Python does better than Terminal Invasion,” says Regina. This is because Boa vs. Python makes an unmistakable commitment to giant snakes, while Terminal Invasion doesn’t indicate that people will be murdered by aliens while snowed in at an airport. The best titles are as explicit as legal documents.Invariably, a Saturday night creature feature runs for 88 minutes. The creature must appear by minute 15. Hollywood dogma calls for a plot structure of three acts, but three-act dramas are too slow for Cannella, Vitale, and Regina. Cannella tells his writers and directors that he wants a death every eight minutes — including monsters eating people and pooping them out. Their movies come in seven acts. That gives you six cliffhangers, plus a climax, if you do things right.
When it comes to the stories, Cannella likes plots that are based — very loosely — on headline news.
The financial side:
The Sci Fi guys follow a strict plan to get their ideas onscreen. They pay a flat fee of $750,000 to indies like Beach. Sometimes – as in the case of Mansquito – they approach filmmakers with a fleshed-out scheme; other times, they’ll simply have a monster in mind. The $750,000 covers everything from the script and actors to location costs and production work. In the straight-to-video world, that’s a dominating sum. “Everybody gets the same deal, because we need movies, not problems,” says Cannella. “We depend on these guys. We don’t want them going out of business.”Typically, it costs Beach and other filmmakers $1.4 to $1.8 million to make a movie; they supplement the fee from Sci Fi with revenue they earn through foreign-licensing agreements (the Sci Fi Channel keeps the US film rights).
[...]
These days, a million dollars can get you at least passable, and sometimes genuinely creepy, monsters. CGI workstations have plummeted from $10,000 to $3,000 each; renegade animators have set up shop outside Hollywood, and low-end production firms offer professional studio services in Eastern Europe. Now, even the rawest B-movies have that extra sheen. While there are odd slipups in continuity or editing (in Snakehead Terror, for instance, a recognizable shot repeats), there is little in the production quality of these films that is simply laughable.