La La Land

Production Budget Analysis

What was the production budget for La La Land?

Directed by Damien Chazelle, with Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend leading the cast, La La Land was produced by Summit Entertainment with a confirmed budget of $30,000,000, placing it in the low-budget category for comedy films.

With a $30,000,000 budget, La La Land sits in the mid-range of studio releases. Marketing costs for a wide release at this level typically add $30–60 million, putting the break-even point near $75,000,000.

Budget Comparison — Similar Productions

• A Hologram for the King (2016): Budget $30,000,000 | Gross $9,169,507 → ROI: -69% • A Lot Like Love (2005): Budget $30,000,000 | Gross $42,886,719 → ROI: 43% • Big Momma's House (2000): Budget $30,000,000 | Gross $173,959,438 → ROI: 480% • Crazy Rich Asians (2018): Budget $30,000,000 | Gross $238,539,198 → ROI: 695% • Doomsday (2008): Budget $30,000,000 | Gross $22,472,631 → ROI: -25%

Key Budget Allocation Categories

▸ Talent Salaries & Producing Deals Established comedic talent can command $15–20 million per film, with top-tier stars earning even more through producing credits and backend deals. Comedy ensembles multiply this cost across several well-known performers.

▸ Production & Location Filming While comedies generally avoid the VFX costs of action films, location shooting in recognizable cities or exotic locales adds meaningful production expense.

▸ Marketing & P&A (Prints & Advertising) Comedies rely heavily on marketing to build opening-weekend momentum. Studios typically spend 50–100% of the production budget on marketing, with comedy trailers and social media campaigns being particularly expensive.

Key Production Personnel

CAST: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt, Finn Wittrock Key roles: Ryan Gosling as Sebastian; Emma Stone as Mia; John Legend as Keith; Rosemarie DeWitt as Laura

DIRECTOR: Damien Chazelle CINEMATOGRAPHY: Linus Sandgren MUSIC: Justin Hurwitz EDITING: Tom Cross PRODUCTION: Summit Entertainment, Gilbert Films, Impostor Pictures, Marc Platt Productions FILMED IN: United States of America

Box Office Performance

La La Land earned $151,101,803 domestically and $358,081,733 internationally, for a worldwide total of $509,183,536. International markets drove the majority of revenue (70%), indicating strong global appeal.

Break-Even Analysis

Using the industry-standard 2.5x multiplier (P&A + exhibitor shares of 40–50% + distribution fees), La La Land needed approximately $75,000,000 to break even. The film surpassed this threshold by $434,183,536.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Revenue: $509,183,536 Budget: $30,000,000 Net: $479,183,536 ROI: 1597.3%

Profitability Assessment

VERDICT: Highly Profitable

La La Land was a clear financial success, generating $509,183,536 worldwide against a $30,000,000 production budget — a 1597% ROI. After estimated marketing costs, the film still delivered substantial profit to Summit Entertainment.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

The outsized success of La La Land likely influenced studio greenlight decisions for similar comedy projects.

Since its release, La La Land continues to receive acclaim. It is regarded as a modern classic and one of the best films of all time due to its captivating performances, attention to detail, and its assent to previous movie musicals such as Singin' in the Rain. In 2019, CBC Radio included it on its list of "the greatest romantic movies of all time." In 2021, Helena Trauger of The Beacon called it the best film of the 2010s, stating that it is "one of the most creative and well-executed films that every person should attempt to watch at least once." In 2022, Time Out ranked it number 79 on its list of the "100 Best Films of the 21st Century," writing that it "has a signature all of its own, stopping traffic in the first glorious sequence."

MovieWeb ranked the film number 2 on its list of the "Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century So Far," in 2022 as well.

Records: Crossed the $500M worldwide threshold, placing it among the top-grossing films of 2016.

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Casting

Miles Teller and Emma Watson were originally slated to star in the leading roles. Watson dropped out to honor her commitments to Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast remake (2017), while Teller exited via long contract negotiations. Chazelle subsequently decided to make his characters somewhat older, with experience in struggling to make their dreams, rather than younger newcomers just arriving in Los Angeles. She met with Chazelle at Brooklyn Diner in New York City, where the director outlined his vision for the planned film. Stone gained confidence from performing in Cabaret to handle the demands of the film. Stone accepted the offer because Chazelle was so passionate about the project. Like Stone, Gosling drew from his own experiences as an aspiring artist. One incident was used for Mia. Gosling was performing a crying scene in an audition and the casting director took a phone call during it, talking about her lunch plans while he was emoting. Chazelle met with Gosling when he was about to begin filming for The Big Short.

Chazelle cast Gosling and Stone immediately after Summit bought the film. Chazelle asked the two about their audition disasters when they were both trying to make it. Both learned to sing and dance for the film's six original tunes.

The film was choreographed by Mandy Moore. Rehearsals took place at a production office in Atwater Village, Los Angeles over the span of three to four months, beginning in May 2015. Gosling practiced piano in one room, Stone worked with Moore in another, and costume designer Mary Zophres had her own corner of the complex. Moore emphasized working on emotion rather than technique, which Stone said was key when they filmed the "A Lovely Night" scene (searching for the parked car).

▸ Pre-Production

As a drummer, Chazelle has a predilection for musical films. His idea was "to take the old musical but ground it in real life where things don't always exactly work out," Chazelle was moved by the tradition of 1920s "city symphony" films, such as Manhatta (1921) and Man with a Movie Camera (1929), that paid tribute to cities. The film also makes visual allusions to Hollywood classics such as Broadway Melody of 1940, Singin' in the Rain, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. About An American in Paris, Chazelle commented: "That's a movie that we just pillaged. It's an awesome example of how daring some of those old musicals really were." It shares some character development and themes with Chazelle's previous musical work, Whiplash; Chazelle said: : "They're both about the struggle of being an artist and reconciling your dreams with the need to be human. La La Land is just much less angry about it."

He said that both films reflect his own experiences as a filmmaker working his way up the Hollywood ladder.

Chazelle was unable to produce the film for years as no studio was willing to finance an original contemporary musical with no familiar songs. It is also a jazz musical, which The Hollywood Reporter called an "extinct genre". He believed that since he and Hurwitz were unknown at that time, it might have made financiers dubious about the project's potential. Chazelle found producers through friends who introduced him to Fred Berger and Jordan Horowitz. With the two producers on board, the script went to Focus Features at a budget of around $1 million. The studio demanded alterations: the male lead was asked to be changed from a jazz pianist to a rock musician, the complicated opening number had to be altered, and the story's bittersweet ending needed to be dropped. Chazelle scrapped the project and moved on.

▸ Filming & Locations

From the beginning, Chazelle wanted the film's musical numbers to be filmed "head to toe" and performed in a single take, like those of the 1930s works of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Chazelle wanted Los Angeles to be the primary setting for his film, commenting that "there is something very poetic about the city I think, about a city that is built by people with these unrealistic dreams and people who kind of just put it all on the line for that." Principal photography on the film officially began in the city on August 10, 2015, and filming took place in more than 60 locations both in and near Los Angeles, including the Angels Flight trolley in downtown, houses in the Hollywood Hills, the Colorado Street Bridge, the Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena, the Warner Bros. studio lot, the Grand Central Market, Hermosa Beach's Lighthouse Café, Griffith Observatory, Griffith Park, Chateau Marmont, the Watts Towers, and Long Beach, with many scenes shot in one take. It took 40 days to complete shooting, finishing in mid-September 2015.

The opening pre-credits sequence was the first to be shot, For this particular scene, Chazelle wanted to give a sense of how vast the city is. six-minute-long "A Lovely Night" scene (searching for the parked car) had to be completed during the brief "magic hour" moment at sunset. It took eight takes and two days to shoot it.

Chazelle said that the romantic dinner that Sebastian prepared for Mia was "one of the scenes that I think I wrote and rewrote and rewrote more than any other in the script".

▸ Music & Score

The songs and score for La La Land were composed and orchestrated by Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle's Harvard University classmate, who also worked on his two prior films. A soundtrack album was released on December 9, 2016, by Interscope Records, featuring selections from Hurwitz's score and songs performed by the cast.

The film's opening number, "Another Day of Sun", shot as a single tracking shot on an L.A. freeway, received praise for its choreography. The songs "City of Stars" and "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" received numerous awards.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: Won 6 Oscars. 242 wins & 307 nominations total

Awards Won: ★ Academy Award for Best Production Design (89th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Original Score — Justin Hurwitz (89th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Director — Damien Chazelle (89th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Actress — Emma Stone (89th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Cinematography — Linus Sandgren (89th Academy Awards) ★ Academy Award for Best Original Song (89th Academy Awards) ★ Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy ★ Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy ★ Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy ★ Golden Globe Award for Best Director ★ Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score ★ Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song ★ Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay

Nominations: ○ Academy Award for Best Film Editing (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Costume Design (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Original Score (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Director (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Original Song (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Sound (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Sound Editing (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Original Song (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Actress (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Picture (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Cinematography (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Production Design (89th Academy Awards) ○ Academy Award for Best Actor (89th Academy Awards)

Additional Recognition: Emma Stone won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival.

La La Land received 11 nominations at the 70th British Academy Film Awards, more than any other film of 2016. The film won in the categories of Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role (for Stone), Best Cinematography, and Best Film Music.

At the 74th Golden Globe Awards, La La Land received a leading seven nominations. The film won in all seven categories for which it was nominated, setting a record for the most Golden Globes won by a single film, namely Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Director, Best Actor – Comedy or Musical (for Gosling), Best Actress – Comedy or Musical (for Stone), Best Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song ("City of Stars") breaking the record One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest set for the most wins.

At the 89th Academy Awards, La La Land received a leading six awards, namely Best Director, Best Actress (for Stone), Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Original Song ("City of Stars"), and Best Production Design. The film received a total of 14 nominations, tying the record for most nominations by a single film with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997). Its other nominations were Best Picture, Best Actor (for Gosling), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, a second nomination for Best Original Song ("Audition (The Fools Who Dream)"), Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.

CRITICAL RECEPTION

La La Land received widespread critical acclaim, with high praise directed towards Chazelle's direction and screenplay, cinematography, music, the performances of Gosling and Stone and their chemistry. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 91% based on 470 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "La La Land breathes new life into a bygone genre with thrillingly assured direction, powerful performances, and an irresistible excess of heart." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 94 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It was the third- and sixth-highest scoring film released in 2016 on each respective site. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported audiences gave an 81% overall positive score and a 93% "definite recommend". Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune similarly lauded the opening sequence, in addition to highlighting Stone's performance, stating "she's reason enough to see La La Land." Despite being less enthusiastic about Gosling's dancing and the film's middle section, Phillips nevertheless gave the film four out of four stars, declaring it "the year's most seriously pleasurable entertainment". A.O. Scott of The New York Times praised the film, stating that it "succeeds both as a fizzy fantasy and a hard-headed fable, a romantic comedy and a showbiz melodrama, a work of sublime artifice and touching authenticity".