Are You There God It's Me, Margaret. Budget

What Is the Budget of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023)?

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023), written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig and released by Lionsgate, was produced on a reported budget of $30,000,000 as an adaptation of Judy Blume's 1970 coming-of-age novel. Lionsgate financed the picture in partnership with Gracie Films (James L. Brooks's production company), with Brooks producing alongside Julie Ansell, Richard Sakai, Aldric La'auli Porter, Amy Lorraine Brooks, and Kelly Fremon Craig herself. The April 28, 2023 theatrical release positioned the picture for a counterprogramming corridor against summer-blockbuster competition.

The investment supported a substantial period production (set in 1970 New Jersey), a young leading-role search that delivered Abby Ryder Fortson in her breakout performance, an A-list supporting cast including Rachel McAdams, Benny Safdie, Kathy Bates, Elle Graham, Amari Price, and Katherine Mallen Kupferer, and Judy Blume's long-protected underlying rights, which she had famously declined to license for decades. The picture marked Kelly Fremon Craig's second feature as director after the critically acclaimed The Edge of Seventeen (2016) and continued her exploration of teen and tween coming-of-age material.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.'s reported $30,000,000 budget was distributed across several major production areas:

• Above-the-Line Talent Kelly Fremon Craig commanded a writer-director rate on the back of The Edge of Seventeen. Rachel McAdams, Benny Safdie, and Kathy Bates filled out the principal cast at established prestige-drama rates. Abby Ryder Fortson in the title role and the young supporting cast (Elle Graham, Amari Price, Katherine Mallen Kupferer) worked at proportionate scale appropriate to a mid-budget period drama with extended emotional and technical demands.
• Period Reconstruction The 1970 New Jersey setting required substantial period reconstruction including suburban-housing interiors, period-accurate classroom and synagogue interiors, vintage cars, period costume work, and signage. Production designer Steve Saklad oversaw the period detail across the picture's principal locations.
• North Carolina Location Shoot Principal photography took place across Charlotte, North Carolina, doubling for suburban New Jersey. The North Carolina production base offered substantial below-the-line cost discipline and access to the state's film tax incentive program.
• Judy Blume Rights The underlying rights to Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. were licensed from Judy Blume after decades of her declining to sell film adaptation rights. The licensing fee included Blume's executive-producer credit and approval over the screenplay direction.
• Period Costume Costume designer Ann Roth (an Academy Award winner for The Hours and The English Patient) oversaw the 1970 period costume work, including individualized wardrobe for Margaret across the school year, period synagogue and Easter-service costumes, and adult wardrobe with detailed period accuracy.
• Score and Music Licensing Composer Hans Zimmer (uncharacteristically scoring an intimate coming-of-age drama) delivered a sparse piano-driven score. Music supervision included period needle drops of early 1970s pop and folk tracks, with publishing and master-recording licensing costs concentrated on the key emotional set pieces.

How Does Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.'s Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $30,000,000, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. sits in the mid-budget range for prestige coming-of-age dramas with period reconstruction. The comparison set illustrates how its budget tracked against contemporaneous peers:

• The Edge of Seventeen (2016): Budget $9,000,000 | Worldwide $19,300,000. Kelly Fremon Craig's directorial debut was produced on a third of Margaret's budget, providing the in-filmography reference for the director's expanded production scale.
• Lady Bird (2017): Budget $10,000,000 | Worldwide $79,000,000. Greta Gerwig's coming-of-age picture cost a third of Margaret and earned nearly four times the worldwide gross, illustrating the commercial potential of breakout coming-of-age critical successes that Margaret did not ultimately replicate.
• Eighth Grade (2018): Budget $2,000,000 | Worldwide $14,500,000. Bo Burnham's tween coming-of-age picture cost a small fraction of Margaret and demonstrated the lower-budget tier in the genre, providing the closest tonal comparison from the contemporary independent coming-of-age cycle.
• Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022): Budget approximately $25,000,000 | Worldwide $36,900,000. Anthony Fabian's contemporaneous period drama was produced on a comparable budget and earned modestly more worldwide, providing the closest financial-template peer for mid-budget period drama.
• Where the Crawdads Sing (2022): Budget $24,000,000 | Worldwide $144,300,000. Olivia Newman's contemporaneous Sony adaptation of a beloved novel cost slightly less than Margaret and earned five times the worldwide gross, illustrating the commercial gap between coming-of-age genre adaptations.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Box Office Performance

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. opened in the United States on April 28, 2023 with a domestic weekend of $6,790,000, finishing fourth behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Evil Dead Rise, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 previews. The opening was softer than Lionsgate had hoped for the prestige adult-coded drama and the picture demonstrated only moderate legs through the May corridor against escalating summer-blockbuster competition.

Against a $30,000,000 production budget, the film needed approximately $75,000,000 worldwide to reach profitability after marketing. Here is the financial breakdown:

• Production Budget: $30,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $25,000,000 to $30,000,000
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $55,000,000 to $60,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: $21,151,089
• Net Return: approximately $35,000,000 to $40,000,000 loss (against total estimated investment)
• ROI: approximately negative 60% to negative 65% (against total estimated investment)

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. returned approximately $0.36 in theatrical revenue for every $1 invested when measured against total estimated production and marketing spend, putting it in moderate theatrical loss before ancillary revenue. The domestic gross of $20,562,800 substantially led the international take of $588,289, a 97/3 split that demonstrated the picture's American-period-specific appeal did not translate internationally.

Lionsgate classified the picture as an underperformer despite strong critical reception, with the commercial outcome reflecting both the crowded April-May release corridor and the broader challenges facing mid-budget prestige drama in the post-pandemic theatrical marketplace. Subsequent home video, streaming licensing through Starz, and broadcast television revenue partially recouped the theatrical shortfall.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Production History

Development on Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. began in 2018 when Kelly Fremon Craig and James L. Brooks approached Judy Blume directly about adapting her 1970 novel, which Blume had famously declined to license for film adaptation across decades despite repeated approaches. Blume agreed to grant the rights following extensive in-person conversations with Fremon Craig and Brooks about the adaptation approach, with the writer-director's track record on The Edge of Seventeen serving as the primary creative justification.

The screenplay was completed in 2019 with Blume's collaboration. The casting search for Margaret extended through 2019 and 2020, with the production ultimately settling on Abby Ryder Fortson on the strength of her work in Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and her audition's emotional specificity. Rachel McAdams, Benny Safdie, and Kathy Bates were attached during the same period.

Principal photography took place in summer 2021 across Charlotte, North Carolina, doubling for suburban New Jersey. The North Carolina production base offered substantial below-the-line cost discipline and access to the state's film tax incentive program. Production designer Steve Saklad oversaw the substantial 1970 period reconstruction across multiple suburban-housing, classroom, and synagogue locations.

Post-production extended through 2022, with the picture's theatrical release delayed from an original 2022 window into April 2023 as Lionsgate negotiated its release-corridor positioning. Hans Zimmer's score, atypical of his usual large-orchestra blockbuster work, contributed a sparse piano-driven approach that became one of the picture's most-praised technical elements. Judy Blume's involvement extended through marketing and promotion, with the author appearing alongside the cast at the picture's premiere and contributing to a companion documentary on her life and career.

Awards and Recognition

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. received nominations at multiple critic-circle ceremonies in the 2023-2024 awards cycle. The film received nominations at the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards (Best Picture, Best Director for Kelly Fremon Craig, Best Supporting Actress for Kathy Bates and Rachel McAdams), the Critics Choice Awards (Best Young Performer for Abby Ryder Fortson), and the Saturn Awards (Best Fantasy Film, Best Performance by a Younger Actor).

Abby Ryder Fortson received particular individual recognition with Best Young Performer wins at multiple regional critic-circle ceremonies. The film also received Critics' Choice Real TV Awards consideration for the companion documentary Judy Blume Forever (2023). The picture did not receive Academy Award nominations, with the underwhelming theatrical performance limiting its visibility within the November-December campaign window. The Independent Spirit Awards did include the picture among its Robert Altman Award nominations (which recognize ensemble casts).

Critical Reception

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. received overwhelmingly positive reviews and is widely considered one of the best-reviewed coming-of-age films of the post-2020 period. The film holds a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 282 critic reviews, with a critical consensus calling it "a beautifully observed coming-of-age film that honors Judy Blume's beloved novel." On Metacritic, the film scored 81 out of 100, indicating universal acclaim. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an A, a strong audience grade for a coming-of-age drama.

The New York Times' Manohla Dargis called the film "one of the most beautifully observed coming-of-age films in recent memory," and Variety's Owen Gleiberman wrote that "Kelly Fremon Craig achieves the rare feat of honoring a beloved source while making the material feel newly urgent." Roger Ebert.com's Sheila O'Malley gave the picture four out of four stars, praising Abby Ryder Fortson's central performance and the screenplay's sensitivity to its young subjects.

The combination of overwhelmingly positive critical reception with underwhelming commercial performance has been the subject of substantial industry commentary, with multiple trade-press analyses citing the picture as evidence of broader challenges facing mid-budget prestige drama in the post-pandemic theatrical marketplace. The picture is widely positioned as one of the rare 99% Rotten Tomatoes scores that did not translate into proportionate commercial success, and Kelly Fremon Craig's subsequent projects have attracted significant industry attention despite the box office outcome.