My Spy The Eternal City Budget

What Is the Budget of My Spy: The Eternal City (2024)?

My Spy: The Eternal City (2024), directed by Pete Segal and released by Amazon MGM Studios, did not have its production budget publicly disclosed. The streaming-original sequel was financed primarily by Amazon following the company's acquisition of MGM in 2022, with continued participation from STXfilms, Madison Wells Studios, and Robert Simonds' Callahan Filmworks, the production banner behind the 2020 original. As an Amazon Prime Video exclusive, the film bypassed traditional theatrical distribution and was never required to publish a Motion Picture Association cost report.

Industry estimates place the budget in the $40 million to $50 million range, a meaningful step up from the $18 million budget of My Spy (2020). The increase reflects the expanded scope of the sequel: extensive on-location filming across Italy including Venice and Rome, significantly larger action set pieces involving helicopter, motorcycle, and Vatican-set sequences, and an expanded supporting cast featuring Anna Faris, Craig Robinson, and Flula Borg alongside returning leads Dave Bautista, Chloe Coleman, Kristen Schaal, and Ken Jeong. Director Pete Segal acknowledged in interviews that the bigger production scale gave the team room to ramp up the action compared to the more contained, Toronto-shot original.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

Based on the production scale and publicly available crew information, the budget was distributed across these areas:

• Above-the-Line Cast: Dave Bautista returned as a producer-star, with a quote informed by his post-Guardians of the Galaxy and Dune franchise standing. Chloe Coleman returned as Sophie alongside Kristen Schaal, Ken Jeong, and Parisa Fitz-Henley. The sequel added Anna Faris, Craig Robinson, Flula Borg, and Billy Barratt as new principal cast, expanding the above-the-line payroll well beyond the 2020 original.
• Director and Writer-Producer Fees: Pete Segal returned to direct and co-wrote the screenplay with Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, the brothers who scripted the original. Segal also took a producer credit, while Bautista, Chris Bender, Jake Weiner, Robert Simonds, Gigi Pritzker, and Jonathan Meisner rounded out the producer team, consolidating writer, director, and star compensation into linked deals.
• Italy Location Production: Principal photography took place across Italy from February to May 2023, including extensive shooting in Venice and the wider Veneto region, plus Rome and Vatican-adjacent locations central to the plot. International location shooting in Italy involved permits at heritage sites, travel and per diem costs for the international cast and crew, on-location stunt coordination through Italian piazze and canals, and accommodations for a production base abroad for several months.
• Action Sequences and Stunts: The sequel significantly upscaled the action from the original, including a motorcycle chase through Rome, a helicopter set piece, and rooftop and canal sequences in Venice. Stunt coordination, vehicle work, rigging, and second-unit photography for the chase sequences absorbed a substantially larger share of the budget than the more contained Toronto-shot 2020 film.
• Visual Effects and Post-Production: While not effects-heavy by tentpole standards, the film required digital cleanup for the Venice and Vatican sequences, compositing for helicopter and weapons work, and standard finishing through a Los Angeles post-production cycle. Sean Segal scored the film, with editor Jason Gourson cutting in post following the May 2023 wrap.
• Production Crew and Equipment: Cinematographer Larry Blanford, a Pete Segal collaborator since the Adam Sandler era, led the camera and lighting package. The Italian shoot required mixed local and traveling department heads, with camera, grip, and electric crews split between the U.S. core team and Italian below-the-line hires to satisfy local production rules.
• Marketing and Streaming Launch: Amazon MGM Studios handled marketing in-house through Prime Video, including a press tour with Bautista and Coleman, a global launch trailer, and the worldwide Prime Video debut on July 18, 2024. Marketing spend on Amazon originals is typically absorbed into the platform's broader content-marketing budget rather than reported as a separate prints-and-advertising figure.

How Does My Spy: The Eternal City's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

Without a disclosed figure, My Spy: The Eternal City sits within a clear comparison set of Bautista-led action vehicles and kid-and-adult buddy comedies, most of which have public theatrical budgets:

• My Spy (2020): Budget $18,000,000 | Worldwide $10,500,000. The original starred Bautista and Coleman in the same roles and was shot in Toronto on a contained budget. The sequel's reported scale-up to roughly $40 to $50 million reflects Amazon's expanded ambition for the property and the move from a Canadian production base to extensive Italian location work.
• Stuber (2019): Budget $16,000,000 | Worldwide $33,400,000. The Bautista-led action comedy with Kumail Nanjiani delivered a comparable pairing of physical comedy and chase sequences at a budget closer to the first My Spy, illustrating how much more Amazon invested in the Italian sequel.
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022): Budget $40,000,000 | Worldwide $15,400,000. The Rian Johnson sequel, another Bautista vehicle that bypassed wide theatrical release in favor of streaming, sat at the lower end of the budget range Amazon likely deployed for Eternal City and similarly leaned on international location production for visual scale.
• Kindergarten Cop (1990): Budget $26,000,000 | Worldwide $202,000,000. Ivan Reitman's adult-meets-kid action comedy is the genre touchstone My Spy plays in. Adjusted to 2024 dollars Kindergarten Cop cost roughly $60 million, putting it squarely in the band where the Eternal City sequel reportedly landed.
• The Pacifier (2005): Budget $56,000,000 | Worldwide $198,700,000. Disney's Vin Diesel kid-buddy action vehicle is the closest direct family-action comparison: a heavily marketed studio comedy built around an action-star lead babysitting children, with a budget that aligns with the upper end of the Eternal City estimate range.
• Red Notice (2021): Budget $200,000,000 | Worldwide not reported (Netflix streaming-only). The Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot Netflix original represents the high end of streaming-only action production budgets and provides context for how comparatively modest the My Spy sequel's reported $40 to $50 million estimate is within the streaming-action category.

My Spy: The Eternal City Box Office Performance

My Spy: The Eternal City was an Amazon MGM Studios original and did not receive a wide theatrical release. The film debuted directly on Prime Video worldwide on July 18, 2024. Amazon does not report grosses for Prime Video originals, and Box Office Mojo and The Numbers do not list any reported theatrical revenue for the film. As is standard for Amazon streaming originals of this period, the film's commercial performance was measured internally through Prime Video viewership data and Nielsen streaming charts rather than ticket sales.

The full financial breakdown reflects the streaming-only release model:

• Production Budget: not publicly disclosed (industry estimates: approximately $40,000,000 to $50,000,000)
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): not separately reported (rolled into Amazon Prime Video platform marketing)
• Total Estimated Investment: not publicly disclosed
• Worldwide Gross: not applicable (no wide theatrical release)
• Net Return: measured by Amazon internally via Prime Video viewership and subscriber retention
• ROI: not calculable from public data

Without a public theatrical gross, the film's return on investment cannot be calculated using conventional theatrical math. Amazon's model values family-action originals like this for Prime Video subscriber engagement and household retention rather than per-title revenue.

In the weeks following release, Nielsen tracked My Spy: The Eternal City among Prime Video's most-streamed original films of July and August 2024, and it consistently appeared in Prime Video's top ten globally during its opening window. The streaming-revenue outlook for the film, in the form of continued library viewing and international subscriber value, is the primary measure of its commercial performance.

My Spy: The Eternal City Production History

Development on a My Spy sequel began shortly after the original's strong streaming performance in summer 2020. Amazon, which had acquired the first film during the pandemic and used it as the third-most-watched straight-to-streaming title of 2020, ordered a follow-up under its expanded film slate following the 2022 MGM acquisition. Pete Segal returned to direct and co-write the screenplay with the original's writing team, Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, with whom he had developed several action projects.

Dave Bautista returned as J.J. with a producer credit through his collaboration with Robert Simonds' Callahan Filmworks, the production company behind the original. Chloe Coleman, who was nine years old when the first film was shot, returned as Sophie at age fourteen, with the screenplay reframing the relationship around her teenage independence. Kristen Schaal and Ken Jeong reprised their roles, and the production expanded the ensemble with Anna Faris as J.J.'s new field-agent foil, Craig Robinson as a CIA station chief, Flula Borg as the principal antagonist Crane, and Billy Barratt as a love interest for Sophie.

Italy was selected as the primary shooting location to differentiate the sequel visually from the Toronto-based original. The script was built around a school choir trip to Rome, with action sequences set against the Vatican and a third-act run through Venice. Principal photography commenced in February 2023 in Italy and wrapped in May 2023 in the Veneto region. The Italian shoot required substantial location permitting and second-unit work to coordinate the motorcycle and helicopter sequences through historic city centers.

Cinematographer Larry Blanford, a longtime Pete Segal collaborator dating back to the Adam Sandler comedies of the 2000s, lensed the production. Editor Jason Gourson assembled the film in post-production in Los Angeles through the back half of 2023, with composer Sean Segal scoring the film. The 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes affected post-production scheduling and marketing rollout across the industry, contributing to the gap between the May 2023 wrap and the July 18, 2024 Prime Video release, by which point Amazon had folded the project into its 2024 family-tentpole streaming slate.

Awards and Recognition

My Spy: The Eternal City received no major awards nominations during the 2024 to 2025 cycle, reflecting both its streaming-only release and its character as a family-action sequel rather than an awards-focused production. The film was not submitted by Amazon for Academy Awards or Golden Globe consideration in any category, and it did not appear in the nominations for the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, BAFTAs, or Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The film did receive industry attention as a high-profile Prime Video tentpole launch, with trade outlets including Variety and Deadline covering its global release on July 18, 2024, and its Nielsen streaming chart performance through the summer. Dave Bautista's continued transition from professional wrestling and the Marvel Cinematic Universe into producer-star family fare drew profile coverage at the time of release, though no award nominations followed.

Critical Reception

My Spy: The Eternal City received largely negative reviews from critics, a sharper drop from the original's already mixed reception. The film holds a 23% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 reviews, with an average critic score of 4.8 out of 10. On Metacritic, the film scored 36 out of 100 based on critical aggregate, indicating generally unfavorable reviews. Audience response on Rotten Tomatoes was warmer than critical response, in line with the family-action audience the film targeted.

Detractors argued the screenplay leaned too heavily on franchise repetition and underused the Italian setting beyond postcard exteriors. Critics writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and The Guardian highlighted thin character work for the expanded ensemble, with Anna Faris and Craig Robinson singled out as underwritten additions. Several reviews noted that the chase sequences, while expanded, felt mechanically staged compared with the contained kid-and-spy comedy of the 2020 original. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus described the sequel as a slightly upgraded but still uninspired follow-up that fails to make the most of its bigger budget or charismatic lead pairing.

Supporters, including reviewers at Common Sense Media and family-focused outlets, praised the continued chemistry between Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman, the age-appropriate stakes for the now-teenage Sophie, and the picturesque Italian production design. Several positive notices highlighted the film as a workable family streaming watch over the summer 2024 release window, with Bautista's deadpan physical comedy and Kristen Schaal's reliable supporting work cited as the most consistent assets in an otherwise uneven sequel.