Jackass: Best and Last Budget

What Is the Budget of Jackass: Best and Last?

Jackass: Best and Last (2026) was produced on a confirmed budget of $10,000,000, making it one of the most cost-efficient theatrical releases of its summer opening weekend. For context, the film debuted opposite Supergirl and continued competition from Toy Story 5, competing on a fraction of those films's budgets.

The $10 million production cost reflects the franchise's signature lean approach: no A-list salaries, no CGI spectacle, no elaborate set builds. The budget covered the core cast of veteran stunt performers, a small film crew, safety infrastructure for the new stunts, and the licensing and archival restoration work required to incorporate footage spanning 25 years of the franchise.

Paramount Pictures and MTV Entertainment Studios backed the production through Dickhouse Productions, the production company founded by Jeff Tremaine and Johnny Knoxville that has housed every Jackass theatrical film. With filming completed in just seven weeks (principal photography ran from late February to mid-April 2026), post-production costs were also kept lean.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The $10 million budget for Jackass: Best and Last was distributed across several core production needs:

• Cast Fees and Crew Salaries: The core Jackass ensemble — Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Jason Acuna, Dave England, Preston Lacy, Danger Ehren, Poopies, Zach Holmes, Jasper Dolphin, Rachel Wolfson, and Dark Shark — returned for a final run. Compared to conventional studio talent, Jackass cast costs are relatively modest, with the franchise's unconventional nature meaning no traditional acting rate cards apply.
• Safety, Medical, and Stunt Infrastructure: Stunt safety costs are non-negotiable on Jackass productions. The crew employs medical personnel on-set, carries specialized liability coverage, and funds contingency planning for injuries sustained during filming.
• Archival Licensing and Restoration: Jackass: Best and Last is partly a retrospective, blending new stunts with archival footage from 25 years of the franchise. Licensing legacy footage, restoring older material to modern digital standards, and clearing music rights across decades of clips represents a meaningful share of the budget.
• Production and Location Costs: Filming took place primarily in Los Angeles with a final shoot day in Simi Valley, California. The compressed seven-week schedule kept location and production overhead low relative to multi-month shoots.
• Post-Production and Music: Editing a film that weaves archival material with new footage requires careful pacing work. Music clearances for legacy and new tracks add meaningful cost given the franchise's history with music-driven segments.
• Cinematography and Equipment: Cinematographer Dimitry Elyashkevich, a franchise veteran, led the camera work on the new segments. The Jackass approach relies on multiple cameras capturing real, unscripted reactions rather than controlled multi-take sequences.

How Does Jackass: Best and Last's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

Among theatrical comedy releases in 2026, Jackass: Best and Last stands out for its exceptional cost efficiency. Here is how it compares to its closest franchise and genre peers:

• Jackass Forever (2022): Budget approximately $10,000,000 | Worldwide $80,000,000. The previous installment established the current franchise budget floor while delivering eight times its cost globally, setting the financial precedent this film aimed to match.
• Jackass 3D (2010): Budget approximately $20,000,000 | Worldwide $171,700,000. The franchise's commercial peak benefited from the early 3D theatrical boom, generating nearly $9 for every $1 spent.
• Jackass Number Two (2006): Budget approximately $11,000,000 | Worldwide $84,600,000. The most critically praised installment in the franchise performed comparably to Forever on a similar budget.
• Bad Grandpa (2013): Budget approximately $15,000,000 | Worldwide $151,800,000. The Jackass-adjacent spin-off proved the brand's narrative-hybrid potential at a low budget with massive returns.
• Neighbors (2014): Budget approximately $18,000,000 | Worldwide $268,200,000. A point of comparison for low-budget R-rated comedy theatrical potential, showing how genre films at this cost tier can dramatically outperform.

At $10 million, Jackass: Best and Last entered wide release as one of the cheapest films on its opening weekend, competing against Supergirl ($200M+ budget) and Toy Story 5. The franchise's structural advantage is clear: a modest success still yields strong ROI, and even the lowest-grossing film in the series remains profitable on theatrical alone.

Jackass: Best and Last Box Office Performance

Jackass: Best and Last opened domestically to $8,400,000 over its first weekend (June 26-28, 2026), playing across 2,855 venues according to Box Office Mojo Sunday estimates. International markets added $1,900,000 from 19 territories, producing a global opening weekend of $10,300,000. The domestic opening ranks as the lowest in the franchise's theatrical history, trailing Jackass Forever's $23,000,000 debut in 2022 by a significant margin.

• Production Budget: $10,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $15,000,000
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $25,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: $10,300,000 (opening weekend, as of June 28, 2026)
• Net Return: Early theatrical run; full campaign P&L pending additional weeks of release
• ROI: The production budget alone was essentially recovered in the opening weekend, with $10,300,000 against a $10,000,000 production cost. Including P&A, the full investment is approximately $25,000,000.

The opening weekend performance, while the lowest in franchise history, is not necessarily a financial failure given the film's low production cost. At $10,000,000 to produce, the project required far less theatrical gross to break even compared to a conventional studio release. Industry estimates put the break-even threshold at roughly $25,000,000 in total worldwide gross, accounting for studio percentage splits.

The "compilation" nature of the film, mixing archive footage with new stunts, may have tempered opening weekend interest among franchise fans who expected a purely original production. Jackass Forever (2022) drew $23,000,000 in its debut with an entirely fresh slate of material. Audiences who did attend rewarded the film with a strong CinemaScore grade of A-, suggesting strong word of mouth potential in subsequent weeks.

Jackass: Best and Last Production History

The roots of Jackass: Best and Last reach back to the announcement following Jackass Forever (2022), which Johnny Knoxville had signaled might be his final film in the franchise. After Forever grossed $80,000,000 worldwide, Paramount and the producers began developing what would become the fifth installment, positioning it explicitly as a farewell entry.

Principal photography began in late February 2026, with the full core cast of Jackass Forever returning except Eric Manaka. Filming took place primarily in Los Angeles, California. The opening and closing sequences of the film were directed by Spike Jonze, the filmmaker who has been creatively intertwined with the Jackass franchise since its MTV origins and who produced alongside Jeff Tremaine and Johnny Knoxville.

Production wrapped principal photography on March 13, 2026, with one final shooting day held on April 17, 2026, in Simi Valley, California. The compressed schedule, spanning roughly seven weeks of principal photography, reflects the franchise's efficient production model: no traditional script development, no elaborate pre-visualization, and a lean crew built on long-standing working relationships.

The production integrated MythBusters alumnus Tory Belleci as an explosives consultant for a portion of filming. Belleci developed the concept for a surfing-with-dynamite stunt, inspired by his MythBusters experimentation. The segment was ultimately cut from production after being determined to be logistically improbable at safe scale.

Bam Margera, who was fired from the Jackass Forever production in 2021 and appeared only briefly in that film, does not appear in new footage. He is present only through archive material, making Jackass: Best and Last the only theatrical Jackass film where he had no active participation. His absence reflects the legal and personal conflicts that have surrounded his relationship with the franchise since 2021.

Knoxville stated publicly that the film represents the natural conclusion of the franchise, saying "this is the natural place to end." Paramount has confirmed the film as the final theatrical chapter of the series that launched on MTV in 2000 and spent 26 years generating content across television, direct-to-video specials, and theatrical films.

Awards and Recognition

As a June 2026 release, Jackass: Best and Last entered the theatrical marketplace during a period when major awards consideration had not yet commenced. The film's genre, mixing documentary footage with unscripted stunt performance, places it outside most traditional awards categories.

The franchise as a whole has a limited formal awards history, though individual films have received recognition within genre and comedy categories. Jackass Number Two (2006) received significant critical praise as the series high-water mark, and Jackass Forever (2022) was noted by critics as a strong genre entry on the franchise's 20th anniversary. Jackass: Best and Last currently holds an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the best-reviewed theatrical film in the franchise's history, surpassing all previous installments by a notable margin.

CinemaScore audiences, who graded the film A-, affirmed the franchise's enduring connection with its core fanbase. Whether the film receives any end-of-year recognition from critics groups or specialty awards bodies focused on documentary or comedy filmmaking remains to be seen as 2026 awards season develops.

Critical Reception

Jackass: Best and Last earned its best critical reception of any film in the franchise, landing at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes from 66 reviews with an average rating of 6.5/10. The Metacritic score of 63/100 from 29 critics reflects "generally favorable reviews," though the divergence between the two scores illustrates the polarizing nature of the material. Audiences graded the film A- on CinemaScore.

Critics broadly praised the film as a fitting, emotionally resonant farewell to one of the most distinctive franchises in American entertainment. Variety's Guy Lodge wrote that the film makes you believe the crew "will actually miss all this," capturing the bittersweet quality that reviewers consistently noted. The Hollywood Reporter called it a "high-risk hurrah." Screen Daily cited the film as a "gleeful mix of past highlights and punishing new stunts."

IndieWire noted the film functioned as "Johnny Knoxville's Greatest Hits" in both intent and execution. Roger Ebert.com described it as a "raucous final film" that succeeded in saying goodbye. The critical consensus centers on the film being more retrospective than purely original, with reviewers acknowledging that the mix of archive material and new stunts produces a different emotional texture than previous theatrical entries.

The 88% Rotten Tomatoes score surpasses every prior Jackass theatrical release, a notable achievement for a franchise often dismissed by critics as shock comedy. The strong reception reflects both the nostalgic stakes of a finale and the genuine affection critics have developed for the franchise's performers over 25 years.