Like Father Budget

What Is the Budget of Like Father (2018)?

Like Father (2018), written and directed by Lauren Miller Rogen and produced by Netflix as one of its first wave of original feature comedies, was made on an undisclosed budget that industry sources placed in the $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 range. The film was the directorial debut of Miller Rogen (a writer-producer on For a Good Time, Call... and the wife of Seth Rogen) and was made under a deal between Netflix, Anonymous Content, and Point Grey Pictures, the production company Rogen and Evan Goldberg run.

Like Father was conceived for the streaming model rather than the theatrical specialty market. Netflix's standard low-to-mid range comedy mandate at the time was to deliver a watchable star-driven film at a modest cost, with no theatrical release to support and no marketing budget tied to a wide opening weekend. The casting of Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer, both of whom carried television-driven name recognition rather than theatrical opening-weekend pull, fit the streaming math precisely.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The reported budget was distributed across several core production areas:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Kristen Bell, fresh off the success of The Good Place at NBC and Frozen for Disney, headlined alongside four-time Emmy winner Kelsey Grammer (Frasier, Boss). Both worked at streaming-friendly rates that traded back-end participation for a manageable upfront fee. Lauren Miller Rogen received fees as writer, director, and producer.
• Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Shoot: The production filmed largely aboard the Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas during an actual eastern Caribbean sailing in early 2017, a logistically unusual arrangement that required Royal Caribbean to provide cooperation, cabin and venue access, and on-board crew accommodation. Shipboard photography eliminated the need for elaborate set construction but added complexity in scheduling around live passenger sailings.
• Caribbean Port Photography: Additional photography took place at port stops in Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten, capturing real shore excursions, beach scenes, and waterfront tourist locations. International location work added travel, lodging, and customs costs above a stage-bound shoot.
• Supporting Cast: Comedian Seth Rogen appears in a brief uncredited cameo, with supporting performances from Leonard Ouzts, Anne Dudek, Brett Gelman, and Mary Looram filling out the cruise-ship ensemble. The supporting cast was scaled to keep above-the-line costs in check.
• Score and Music Licensing: Composer Andrew Feltenstein and John Nau provided the original score, with additional licensing for pop tracks used in shipboard and montage sequences. Music spend was modest for a Netflix dramedy of this scale.
• Post-Production and Visual Effects: Light VFX work supported the cruise ship sequences, with limited extension and water-deck work. The film was completed in time for a July 2018 launch on Netflix worldwide.

How Does Like Father's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At an estimated $10,000,000 to $15,000,000, Like Father sits in the mid-range of contemporary Netflix originals comedy slate. Its peers from the same streaming era spent in a comparable bracket:

• Set It Up (2018): Budget approximately $7,000,000 to $10,000,000 | Worldwide n/a streaming. Netflix's contemporaneous Claire Scanlon-directed workplace romcom was a clearer breakout, generating heavy social-media conversation and reportedly driving major subscriber engagement for the platform.
• Always Be My Maybe (2019): Budget approximately $15,000,000 | Worldwide n/a streaming. The Ali Wong and Randall Park romcom is the upper-end Netflix comedy comparison, with a higher star-driven cost base and a larger marketing push behind the launch.
• The Kissing Booth (2018): Budget approximately $8,000,000 | Worldwide n/a streaming. Vince Marcello's teen romance was made for less, became a runaway streaming hit, and spawned two sequels, demonstrating how a low-cost Netflix comedy could dramatically outperform expectations.
• Spenser Confidential (2020): Budget approximately $50,000,000 | Worldwide n/a streaming. Peter Berg's Mark Wahlberg vehicle is a useful contrast at three to five times the budget, showing where Netflix would invest when a star carried meaningful audience pull.
• Spy (2015): Budget $65,000,000 | Worldwide $235,666,150. The Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy comedy is a useful theatrical contrast at five to six times the budget, showing the financial gulf between a theatrical comedy and a streaming dramedy that needs no opening-weekend recoupment.

Like Father Box Office Performance

Like Father had no theatrical release. It premiered exclusively on Netflix on August 3, 2018 in all subscriber territories. As is standard for Netflix originals, the company has never publicly disclosed viewership figures or recoupment math for the film. Industry trackers including Parrot Analytics and Reelgood logged it as a mid-tier streaming performer in its launch month, well behind the platform's tentpole comedies that summer but above the lowest tier of original output.

Against an estimated $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 production budget, the streaming-only release model means traditional theatrical ROI metrics do not apply. Here is the closest available financial framing:

• Production Budget: estimated $10,000,000 to $15,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): minimal; Netflix in-platform promotion only
• Total Estimated Investment: estimated $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 including marketing
• Worldwide Gross: streaming exclusive; no public box office
• Net Return: not publicly disclosed by Netflix
• ROI: measured by Netflix internally via viewership and subscriber engagement, not disclosed

Trade reporting indicated the film performed in the middle range of Netflix's 2018 original comedies, attracting steady viewing but not generating the social-media surge that the platform's breakout hits that summer (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, The Kissing Booth) drove. It has continued to appear in Netflix's comedy and rom-com category recommendations in the years since launch.

Without disclosed viewership data the recoupment math cannot be calculated, but for Netflix the relevant measure is engagement against the cost of acquiring or producing the title rather than a one-time theatrical gross. By that standard, a low-cost dramedy with two recognizable leads is the platform's most consistent middle-of-funnel content investment.

Like Father Production History

Lauren Miller Rogen developed the screenplay over several years before pitching it to Netflix in 2016 as part of the platform's push to grow its original comedy slate. She had previously co-written For a Good Time, Call... (2012) with Katie Anne Naylon and produced under the Point Grey banner with husband Seth Rogen and partner Evan Goldberg, but Like Father was her feature directorial debut.

Principal photography took place over approximately five weeks in February and March 2017. The production boarded a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in Louisiana or in Florida (the embarkation port has varied by reporting) and shot during an actual eastern Caribbean sailing, with location work at Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten port stops. Royal Caribbean granted on-board access in exchange for promotional consideration, an arrangement that allowed the production to capture real shipboard public spaces without the cost of building large interior sets.

Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer were cast in May 2016, with Bell joining as a producer on the project. The on-board shoot required coordinating around the working cruise vessel's daily schedule, with production rotating through dining rooms, the pool deck, the bridge, and cabin interiors during off-passenger hours. A small portion of supplementary footage was captured in New York at the start and end of the story.

The film was edited through late 2017 and delivered to Netflix in early 2018, with a release set for the summer streaming window alongside the platform's broader romcom and dramedy push that year. There was no theatrical festival or theatrical release window.

Awards and Recognition

Like Father received no significant awards recognition. The film was not nominated at the major industry ceremonies and was not part of any festival circuit, having been delivered directly to streaming without a theatrical window.

Lauren Miller Rogen received some critical attention as a first-time director, and Kristen Bell received occasional mention in mid-2018 best-of-streaming roundups, but neither generated the kind of campaign-driven awards conversation that breakout Netflix originals have produced in subsequent years. The film's legacy is as a steady, watchable middle-of-the-slate dramedy rather than as a critical or awards-driven release.

Critical Reception

Like Father received mixed reviews from critics. The film holds a 78% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews, with a critical consensus noting its strong central performances and predictable structure. On Metacritic, the film scored 57 out of 100, indicating mixed or average reviews.

Critics largely praised Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer's chemistry while objecting to the formulaic father-daughter reconciliation arc and the limited stakes of the cruise-ship premise. The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck called it "a cinematic equivalent of comfort food, predictable in its beats but anchored by two committed performances," while Variety's Joe Leydon noted that "Miller Rogen has a feel for the rhythms of family argument that elevates the more generic moments."

Audience response on Netflix's in-platform thumbs system and on aggregator sites was steadier than the critical reception, with viewers responding warmly to the central pairing and to the holiday-cruise wish-fulfillment hook. The film has remained in regular rotation on Netflix's romcom and dramedy category pages in the years since its launch.