Lift Budget

What Is the Budget of Lift (2024)?

Lift (2024), the heist-action comedy directed by F. Gary Gray and starring Kevin Hart, was produced on a reported budget of approximately $100,000,000, making it one of the most expensive Netflix Originals of the 2023 to 2024 production cycle. Netflix financed and produced the film through its in-house feature studio, with co-production credits to Kevin Hart's HartBeat Productions and F. Gary Gray's production team. The acquisition deal was structured as a Netflix-original production-and-distribution arrangement, with the streamer retaining global rights in perpetuity in exchange for the production financing.

The budget reflected a calculated tentpole-streaming play. Netflix positioned Lift as one of its January 2024 marquee feature launches alongside the parallel Society of the Snow (2023) awards-season release and the Damsel (2024) Millie Bobby Brown fantasy launch two months later. The film's budget allocation supported a name above-the-line package, an international production base across London, Belfast, Venice, and the Italian and Austrian Alps, and the cumulative VFX, stunt, and set-piece work that the high-altitude airplane-heist premise required.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

Lift's reported $100,000,000 budget was distributed across several core production areas:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Lead actor Kevin Hart (Jumanji, Central Intelligence) commanded a single-cast fee in the high-eight-figure range, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Morning Show, Loki) as the Interpol agent Abby Gladwell, Sam Worthington (Avatar) as the security expert, Vincent D'Onofrio (The Magnificent Seven), Úrsula Corberó (Money Heist), Billy Magnussen (Game Night), Jacob Batalon (Spider-Man), and Jean Reno (Léon: The Professional) anchoring the ensemble heist crew. Director F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton, The Fate of the Furious) received a feature-director rate appropriate to a $100,000,000 Netflix tentpole.
• International Production Base: Principal photography spanned London, Belfast, Venice, the Italian and Austrian Alps, and supplementary stage interiors at Belfast's Titanic Studios. The multi-territory shoot, captured across the UK, Italy, and Austria, required substantial transport, lodging, and unit-relocation budget across multiple country film-incentive programs.
• Heist Set-Piece Construction: The film features multiple major set pieces including a Venice opening art-theft sequence, an Italian Alps train infiltration, a London Heathrow Airport reception, and the centerpiece mid-air gold-heist sequence inside a converted Boeing 777. Set construction for the airplane interior, multiple period-art-gallery interiors, and the Italian-mountain helipad complex represented a substantial production design line item.
• Visual Effects: Multiple VFX houses contributed to the film's shot count, including airplane-exterior CG composites for the mid-air heist sequence, helicopter and aerial set extensions, art-forgery insert composites, and substantial environmental enhancements across the international location footprint. Industrial Light & Magic and other tentpole-tier vendors handled the heaviest mid-air sequences.
• Stunt and Action Choreography: The film's mid-air, train-infiltration, and Venice-canal-chase sequences required extensive stunt rehearsal, wirework, and rigged practical effects. Stunt coordinator coordination across the multi-territory shoot represented a significant share of the action budget.
• Score and Music: The score by Jonas Friedlander, with additional music from credited orchestral arrangers, blends heist-cinema rhythmic cues with action-tentpole orchestral sequences. The soundtrack budget covered original composition, orchestra recording, and song licensing for the marketing trailer and key narrative beats.
• Marketing and Platform Launch: Netflix's January 2024 marquee marketing push for Lift represented a substantial line item on the platform side, with global billboards, trailers, streaming-platform takeover positioning, and a coordinated press cycle that anchored Kevin Hart's January 2024 promotional schedule.

How Does Lift's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $100,000,000, Lift sits in the upper-mid range of Netflix tentpole originals and heist-action features:

• Red Notice (2021): Budget approximately $200,000,000 | Netflix Original. The Rawson Marshall Thurber Netflix heist-action tentpole with Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot operated at roughly twice Lift's tariff and remains the streamer's highest-budget original feature.
• The Gray Man (2022): Budget approximately $200,000,000 | Netflix Original. The Russo Brothers Netflix action tentpole with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans operated at twice Lift's tariff and offers another direct upper-end-Netflix-original comparison.
• Hustle (2022): Budget approximately $50,000,000 | Netflix Original. The Adam Sandler-Juancho Hernangómez basketball comedy released by Netflix offers a substantially lower-tariff Netflix-Original comparison from the same broader programming period.
• Ocean's 8 (2018): Budget approximately $70,000,000 | Worldwide $297,700,000. Gary Ross' theatrical heist-comedy ensemble released by Warner Bros. demonstrates the upper ceiling for contemporary theatrical heist-ensemble releases.
• The Italian Job (2003): Budget approximately $60,000,000 | Worldwide $176,100,000. The F. Gary Gray-directed theatrical heist-action release for Paramount, also featuring an international gold-heist premise, provides the most direct same-director comparison and demonstrates how the streaming-versus-theatrical economics have shifted across the intervening two decades.

Lift Box Office Performance

Lift did not receive a wide theatrical release. As a Netflix Original, the film premiered globally on Netflix on January 12, 2024 in all territories simultaneously. There is no theatrical gross to report. Netflix's public Tudum chart data placed the film at #1 globally for English-language films for the week of January 8 to 14, 2024, with approximately 39,500,000 views in its first week. The film remained in Netflix's top 10 English-language films for four consecutive weeks, with cumulative views estimated at over 80,000,000 across the launch window.

• Production Budget: $100,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $25,000,000 to $40,000,000 (Netflix platform marketing)
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $125,000,000 to $140,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: no theatrical release; approximately 80,000,000+ Netflix views in first four weeks
• Net Return: measured by Netflix in subscriber acquisition and retention, not ticket revenue
• ROI: not reported by Netflix; engagement metrics positioned the title as a strong but not breakout January 2024 launch

The streaming-only release model means Lift does not generate a calculable theatrical return-per-dollar. Netflix Original tentpole-feature licensing typically guarantees the production a cost-plus return at delivery, with the engagement risk transferred to the streamer.

Within Netflix's broader January 2024 slate, Lift was treated as a marquee tentpole launch that anchored the streamer's adult-action programming for the first quarter of the year. The four-week top-10 global chart presence positioned the title as a commercial success by Netflix's internal metrics, though the engagement performance did not approach the breakout footprint of Red Notice (2021) or the broader Kevin Hart studio-theatrical body of work.

Lift Production History

Development on Lift began at Netflix in 2020 with screenwriter Daniel Kunka attached based on his earlier credits including 12 Rounds (2009). The project was developed across 2020 and 2021 as a vehicle for Kevin Hart, whose HartBeat Productions joined as co-producer alongside Netflix's in-house feature studio. F. Gary Gray attached to direct in late 2021, drawing on his previous heist-action work on The Italian Job (2003) and his more recent franchise-action experience on Straight Outta Compton (2015) and The Fate of the Furious (2017).

Principal photography ran from June 2022 to October 2022 across London, Belfast, Venice, the Italian Alps, and the Austrian Alps, with the production capturing UK, Northern Ireland, Italian, and Austrian film-incentive programs. Belfast's Titanic Studios provided the principal stage build for the airplane interior, with controlled-location work in Venice for the canal-chase sequences, mountain-helipad work in the Italian and Austrian Alps, and London-Heathrow-Airport-substitute work across UK studio facilities.

Casting Kevin Hart as the heist-crew leader Cyrus anchored the project at a moment when Hart was actively recalibrating his career toward more dramatic and ensemble-led work alongside his established stand-up comedy and family-film leads. The ensemble heist crew was assembled across 2022 and early 2023, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sam Worthington, Vincent D'Onofrio, Úrsula Corberó (in her first major English-language post-Money Heist project), Billy Magnussen, Jacob Batalon, and Jean Reno providing an internationally recognizable ensemble.

Post-production took place across Los Angeles, London, and Belfast facilities through 2023, with delivery to Netflix in time for the January 12, 2024 streaming premiere. The film launched alongside an aggressive Netflix platform marketing campaign that leveraged Kevin Hart's parallel Netflix overall-deal visibility and the broader January 2024 post-holiday programming window.

Awards and Recognition

Lift received no major industry awards recognition. The film was not nominated at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, SAG, or Academy Awards in the 2024 cycle. The streaming-direct release model and the action-comedy genre positioning constrained the film's eligibility footprint at the major industry ceremonies. The film also did not register at the Razzie Awards despite its mixed critical reception.

Kevin Hart received continued visibility on the strength of the lead performance and the parallel Netflix overall-deal commercial trajectory, with the actor's subsequent Netflix-deal extensions reflecting the continued commercial value of his streaming-original feature output. F. Gary Gray's direction was noted in trade press but did not translate into year-end-prize recognition.

Critical Reception

Lift received broadly negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating in the high 20% range based on approximately 130 published reviews, with a critical consensus that flagged the screenplay's reliance on heist-cinema cliché, the underutilized ensemble cast, and the central heist sequence's reliance on convenient plot machinery. On Metacritic, the film scored 36 out of 100, indicating generally unfavorable reviews.

Limited praise centered on the international location work, the production design of the airplane-interior set, and individual ensemble performances from Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Úrsula Corberó. Variety's Owen Gleiberman called the film "a glossy, fast-moving Netflix heist movie that delivers some passable set pieces but never finds a reason to exist beyond its star's schedule," while The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck wrote that the film "marshals an impressive ensemble cast and a substantial budget without ever making them feel necessary."

Detractors objected to the screenplay's reliance on heist-cinema cliché, the underutilized ensemble cast (with Sam Worthington, Jacob Batalon, and Jean Reno in particular receiving thin material), the broadly drawn antagonist character, and the somewhat anticlimactic third-act resolution. The negative critical reception did not affect the film's commercial trajectory on Netflix, which proceeded as planned across the four-week launch top-10 window.