What is the budget of Coraline?

"Coraline," a animation released in 2009, was directed by Henry Selick and stars Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher. The production budget was $60,000,000, placing it in the high-budget range for animation productions of its era.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

While specific budget breakdowns are not publicly available, typical cost drivers for a animation production like this include:

Animation Production Pipeline: The bulk of an animated film's budget funds the multi-year production pipeline: storyboarding, character modeling, rigging, animation, lighting, rendering, and compositing.
Voice Talent: Celebrity voice casting has become standard for studio animation, with A-list actors earning $5 to 15 million for voice roles.
Music, Songs & Sound Design: Original songs and orchestral scores are central to animated storytelling. Sound design for animated worlds must be created entirely from scratch.
Production: Director Henry Selick met author Neil Gaiman just as Gaiman was finishing the novel Coraline, which was published in 2002, and as Gaiman was a fan of Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), he invited him to make a film adaptation.

What were the major cost factors in Coraline?

Several factors contributed to the overall production costs of "Coraline."

Animation Production Pipeline: Animation Production Pipeline is one of the primary cost drivers in animation productions of this scale.
Voice Talent: Voice Talent is one of the primary cost drivers in animation productions of this scale.
Music: Music, Songs & Sound Design is one of the primary cost drivers in animation productions of this scale.

How Does Coraline's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $60,000,000, Coraline sits in the high-budget range. Here is how it compares to productions with a similar budget:

15 Minutes (2001): Budget $60,000,000, Worldwide Gross $56,359,980
Almost Famous (2000): Budget $60,000,000, Worldwide Gross $47,386,287
Analyze That (2002): Budget $60,000,000, Worldwide Gross $55,003,135
Antz (1998): Budget $60,000,000, Worldwide Gross $171,757,863
Cats & Dogs (2001): Budget $60,000,000, Worldwide Gross $200,687,492

The median budget for wide-release animation films in the 2000s ranges from $30 to 80M for mid-budget to $150M+ for tentpoles.

Coraline Box Office Performance

"Coraline" earned $75,286,229 domestically and $185,860,104 worldwide at the box office. Against a production budget of $60,000,000, the film performed strongly at the box office.

A film typically needs to earn approximately twice its production budget to cover marketing and distribution costs. For "Coraline," that break-even threshold was roughly $120,000,000. With worldwide earnings of $185,860,104, the film cleared that threshold comfortably.

Production Budget: $60,000,000
Worldwide Gross: $185,860,104
Net Return: $125,860,104
ROI: approximately 209.8%

At 209.8%, "Coraline" earned roughly $3.1 for every $1 invested in production.

Coraline Production History

The soundtrack for Coraline features songs by Bruno Coulais, with one ("Other Father Song") by They Might Be Giants. The Other Father's singing voice is provided by John Linnell, one of the band's singers. The band was hired to write an entire soundtrack for the film, but according to John Flansburgh, the production team "wanted the music to be more creepy", and only one song was ultimately used.

Awards and Recognition

Nominated for 1 Oscar. 8 wins & 46 nominations total

Annecy Cristal for a Feature Film

Critical Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 279 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With its vivid stop-motion animation combined with Neil Gaiman's imaginative story, Coraline is a film that's both visually stunning and wondrously entertaining." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100 based on reviews from 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.