I just watched a Scott Adkins movie called Diablo (2025), a good movie. I love Adkins's movies for the action, martial arts and usually great choreography. The story line is usually cool too, and he's got a lot of great movies out there. But he's also got some B-movies, and this Diablo was kinda a B-movie.
Right after watching Diablo I watched Heads of State (2025) starring John Cena and Idris Elba. This one was a certified A-movie. Watching these two movies in quick succession got me thinking about some things I noted that can make a B-movie and A-movie.
First off do y'all know what a B-movie and A-movie is? For those who don't know a B-movie is a low budget movie that makes use of little resources and doesn't have the top tier quality an A-movie has. Not just that it doesn't have it, the makers didn't try to go for that top tier quality, they simply wanted to make something small. They knew from the get-go it was a small project they were going for.
There's nothing wrong with that if the storyline is great, the plot airtight, the acting not amateurish and the visuals on point. But if you get all these right the feeling that it is a small project can make the movie less respectable. Going for some more respect is cool and the feeling that it is a bigger project would take care of that.
Usually to get that feeling you'll have to spend a lot of money and the small project would no longer be a small project, so all suggestions have to be cheap.
Crowds and Public Spaces
One of the things that give that feeling is crowds. One of the biggest features of B-movies is that there are usually fewer people shown throughout the movie. This feeling that there are only few people can be taken care of to some extent by shooting many scenes in public places and with crowds somehow worked into the whole thing.
They don't have to be a crowd of actors, they could just be passersby, but the main thing is that they should be shown on screen as much as possible. Also public places like markets, malls, etc, should be used as much as possible.
All of these in general gives the feeling that the movie is bigger, rather than small private places and few people.
Big Beautiful Sites, Scenes, and Buildings
Natural sites like mountains, rivers, etc already goes without saying, other places like buildings and scenes should be carefully made to be ones beautified and made to look like a big deal. Even scenes where a small normal house would suffice a bigger or more good looking one would do better.
Infact a small normal house should never be used except you can't help it. All of these add to the feeling that resources were spent, and this seems like a smaller change because you were going to use a house in the first place so why not do more to the house and probably do less on some other stuff.
Story Should be More Personal
This was done well in Diablo mentioned above, the conflict was about a man and his family. Stories that are personal can seem serious and captivating enough and wouldn't require as much as conflicts that are more public. For example, if the conflict was about protecting a president's life, it would cost more to properly depict a president.
You'd need the cars, security detail, involved crowds, etc. If the conflict is to save the world you might also need to show the far reaching effects on the lives of people, and probably show a large portion of the world or city going through it already. But if it is personal it wouldn't require showing so much effects on other stuff.
At the same time making the story have a public impact rather than a personal one is a great way to give a movie the A-movie feel but it's difficult to do that properly on a budget, but if you pull that off thay can skyrocket the quality/feel.
Cover photo created by myself
The End
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