Kelly and Mac are settling down in a quiet neighborhood with their newborn child, until the frat brothers move into the house next door. Teddy is the President, and Pete is his right hand man, and they're quick to accept friendship when Kelly and Mac introduce themselves as the neighbors. Night after night, Mac asks Teddy to lower the fraternity's noise, even accepting the invitation to the party one evening. When Teddy goes back on his word to keep the partying down, Mac calls the police to deal with the problem. The police quickly blame Mac for their presence, and the war begins. As the family feuds with the frat brothers, things get hilariously dangerous and the fraternity ends up on thin ice with their college. After receiving their final warning and being placed on probation, Mac and Kelly pull a prank so ingenious that Teddy and Pete are forced to respond. All hell breaks loose, from Robert DeNiro parties to Christopher Mintz-Plasse having sex in the bushes, this comedy shows how things can go really wrong really quickly when a family and a frat house become neighbors.

What is the budget of Neighbors?

"Neighbors," a comedy released in 2014, was directed by Nicholas Stoller and stars Seth Rogen, Zac Efron. The production budget was $18,000,000, placing it in the low-budget range for comedy productions of its era.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

While specific budget breakdowns are not publicly available, typical cost drivers for a comedy production like this include:

Talent Salaries & Producing Deals: Established comedic talent can command $15 to 20 million per film, with top-tier stars earning even more through producing credits and backend deals.
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.
Production: Seth Rogen and Zac Efron became attached to the film before it was pitched to studios.

What were the major cost factors in Neighbors?

Several factors contributed to the overall production costs of "Neighbors."

Talent Salaries: Talent Salaries & Producing Deals is one of the primary cost drivers in comedy productions of this scale.
Production: Production & Location Filming is one of the primary cost drivers in comedy productions of this scale.
Marketing: Marketing & P&A (Prints & Advertising) is one of the primary cost drivers in comedy productions of this scale.

How Does Neighbors's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $18,000,000, Neighbors sits in the low-budget range. Here is how it compares to productions with a similar budget:

127 Hours (2010): Budget $18,000,000, Worldwide Gross $35,700,000
A Dog's Way Home (2019): Budget $18,000,000, Worldwide Gross $17,643,857
Amadeus (1984): Budget $18,000,000, Worldwide Gross $90,007,557
And So It Goes (2014): Budget $18,000,000, Worldwide Gross $25,312,387
Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004): Budget $18,000,000 , Gross $65,070,412

The median budget for wide-release comedy films in the 2010s ranges from $30 to 80M for mid-budget to $150M+ for tentpoles.

Neighbors Box Office Performance

"Neighbors" earned $150,157,400 domestically and $270,665,134 worldwide at the box office. Against a production budget of $18,000,000, the film performed strongly at the box office.

A film typically needs to earn approximately twice its production budget to cover marketing and distribution costs. For "Neighbors," that break-even threshold was roughly $36,000,000. With worldwide earnings of $270,665,134, the film cleared that threshold comfortably.

Production Budget: $18,000,000
Worldwide Gross: $270,665,134
Net Return: $252,665,134
ROI: approximately 1403.7%

At 1403.7%, "Neighbors" earned roughly $15.04 for every $1 invested in production.

Neighbors Production History

The soundtrack was released as a digital download in the US on April 29, 2014,

Awards and Recognition

7 wins & 11 nominations total

Critical Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 72% based on 221 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With plenty of bawdy humor evenly spread between its well-matched stars, Neighbors earns its R rating, and filmgoers' laughs." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 45 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.