The budget was no where NEAR $500,000!
This movie looked cheap as hell (not that a small budget is a bad thing). But the budget listed here on IMDb is totally wrong. Shaft, released the same year, had a budget of $500,000 and had MUCH slicker production values. Wikipedia, getting its source from The Numbers.com, lists the budget at $150,000. Which seems much more appropriate. Night of the Living Dead came out 3 years earlier than Sweetback and actually had a smaller budget ($114,000). Yet, it had better production values.
Religion should be made fun of. If I believed that stuff, I'd keep it to myself. -Larry David