De rouille et d’os Budget

2012

DramaRomance2h 3m

Updated April 25, 2026

Budget

$15,400,000

Domestic Box Office

$2,062,027

Worldwide Box Office

$25,762,027

Synopsis

Ali finds himself with a five-year-old child on his hands. Sam is his son, but he hardly knows him. Homeless, penniless and friendless, Ali takes refuge with his sister Anna in Antibes, in the south of France. There things improve immediately. She puts them up in her garage, she takes the child under her wing and the weather is glorious. Ali, a man of formidable size and strength, gets a job as a bouncer in a nightclub. He comes to the aid of Stéphanie during a nightclub brawl. Aloof and beautiful, Stéphanie seems unattainable, but in his frank manner Ali leaves her his phone number anyway. Stéphanie trains orca whales at Marineland. When a performance ends in tragedy, a call in the night again brings them together. When Ali sees her next, Stéphanie is confined to a wheel chair: she has lost her legs and quite a few illusions. Ali’s direct, unpitying physicality becomes Stéphanie’s lifeline, but Ali too is transformed by Stéphanie’s tough resilience. And Stephanie comes alive again. As their stories intersect and diverge, they navigate a world where strength, beauty, youth and blood are commodities—but where trust, truth, loyalty and love cannot be bought and sold, and courage comes in many forms.

What is the budget of De rouille et d’os?

"De rouille et d’os," a drama released in 2012, was directed by Jacques Audiard and stars Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts. The production budget was $15,400,000, placing it in the low-budget range for drama productions of its era.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

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

Above-the-Line Talent: Drama films live or die on the strength of their performances.
Location Filming & Period Production Design: Authentic locations , whether contemporary or historical , require scouting, permits, travel, lodging, and often significant dressing to match the story's time period.
Post-Production, Color Grading & Score: The editorial process for dramas is typically longer than genre films, with careful attention to pacing and tone.
Filming & Locations: Filming started on 4 October 2011 and lasted eight weeks. Locations were used in Antibes, Cannes, Belgium, Paris, northern France, Liège and Brussels.

What were the major cost factors in De rouille et d’os?

Several factors contributed to the overall production costs of "De rouille et d’os."

Above-the-Line Talent: Above-the-Line Talent is one of the primary cost drivers in drama productions of this scale.
Location Filming: Location Filming & Period Production Design is one of the primary cost drivers in drama productions of this scale.
Post-Production: Post-Production, Color Grading & Score is one of the primary cost drivers in drama productions of this scale.

How Does De rouille et d’os's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $15,400,000, De rouille et d’os sits in the low-budget range. Here is how it compares to productions with a similar budget:

A Dangerous Method (2011): Budget $15,000,000, Worldwide Gross $27,462,041
Ben-Hur (1959): Budget $15,000,000, Worldwide Gross $164,000,000
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997): Budget $16,500,000 , Gross $67,711,748
Beyond Skyline (2017): Budget $14,000,000, Worldwide Gross $992,181
Away We Go (2009): Budget $17,000,000, Worldwide Gross $15,779,455

The median budget for wide-release drama films in the 2010s ranges from $30 to 80M for mid-budget to $150M+ for tentpoles.

De rouille et d’os Box Office Performance

"De rouille et d’os" earned $2,062,027 domestically and $25,762,027 worldwide at the box office. Against a production budget of $15,400,000, the film showed modest profitability in theatrical release.

A film typically needs to earn approximately twice its production budget to cover marketing and distribution costs. For "De rouille et d’os," that break-even threshold was roughly $30,800,000. With worldwide earnings of $25,762,027, the film fell short of that threshold but recouped its production costs in theatrical release.

Production Budget: $15,400,000
Worldwide Gross: $25,762,027
Net Return: $10,362,027
ROI: approximately 67.3%

At 67.3%, "De rouille et d’os" returned its production investment but margin was tight after marketing and distribution costs.

De rouille et d’os Production History

Filming started on 4 October 2011 and lasted eight weeks. Locations were used in Antibes, Cannes, Belgium, Paris, northern France, Liège and Brussels. [Filming] Filming started on 4 October 2011 and lasted eight weeks. Locations were used in Antibes, Cannes, Belgium, Paris, northern France, Liège and Brussels.

Awards and Recognition

Nominated for 2 BAFTA 32 wins & 73 nominations total

César Award for Best Music Written for a Film
César Award for Best Editing
César Award for Best Adaptation

Critical Reception

The film was screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and received early positive critical reactions. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 82% based on 167 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus states, "Surging on strong performances from Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts, Rust and Bone is as vibrant and messily unpredictable as life itself." Metacritic gave the film a rating of 73/100, based on 39 reviews.