This is interesting to read. I will tell you why. A lot of people including some members here wish a big budget-no-DTV-Seagal movie for a very, very, very long time. Their argument is justified and I also would like to see Seagal on the big screen again, but for me it is not the major criteria.
For me it almost reads that when they sell a movie before it is even produced the budget for it - actors, sfx, location, etc, etc. is completely planned with this what you called pre-sales. Therefore the chances to lift the budget are completely eliminated, before everything can even start. Please feel free to correct me, but with the amount of pre-sales + the regular sales, the way to produce movie with a higher budget has no step-stones in its way. Don't get me wrong, companies like Voltage are making profits with their products after all. Even if they calculate the risk of a failure to nearly zero, there is so much profit for them. I am no communist or turbo capitalist, just a fan with my thoughts on this particular subject.
You are absolutely correct.
No producer will spend $10M-$20M on a Steven Seagal movie, because they know it is not worth that much in the market place.
The budgets for most DTV productions are nowhere near what they used to be 10 or 15 years ago. The sales of DVD's plummeted, and streaming/VOD hasn't been able to take its place.
If you look at something like The Foreigner, even though it is a horrible movie, it's clear that they had money to burn, it looks much higher budget production than say Maximum Conviction.
Back in those days Seagal could still command $5M a movie, and they were able to produce them for $15M, nowadays the entire budget is probably less than Seagal's salary back then.
And since buyers want more bang for their buck Seagal alone is not enough for them, they want more names, which is why they put Steve Austin in Maximum Conviction, Trejo and Rhames in Force of Execution etc.
so they have to pay not only Seagal but additional stars, and since they don't have a lot of money to work with, that results in quick three week shoots, limited locations, cheap visuals and formulaic plots.
That's one reason why you see Seagal and Lundgren and even Van Damme turn more to TV, where there is still money to be made.