Oblivion Budget

What is the budget of Oblivion?

"Oblivion," an action released in 2013, was directed by Joseph Kosinski and stars Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman. The production budget was $120,000,000, placing it in the high-budget range for action productions of its era.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

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

• Stunts, Action Sequences & Visual Effects: Action films allocate a substantial portion of their budget to choreographing and executing practical stunts, pyrotechnics, and CGI-heavy sequences.
• Above-the-Line Talent (Cast & Director): A-list talent commands significant upfront fees plus backend participation.
• Production Design, Sets & Locations: Action films frequently require multiple international shooting locations, large-scale set construction, vehicle acquisitions and modifications, and specialized equipment , all of which drive production costs well above those of dialogue-driven genres.
• Casting: Tom Cruise had expressed interest in the film for a long time, and officially signed to play the lead role on May 20, 2011.

What were the major cost factors in Oblivion?

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

• Stunts: Stunts, Action Sequences & Visual Effects is one of the primary cost drivers in action productions of this scale.
• Above-the-Line Talent (Cast: Above-the-Line Talent (Cast & Director) is one of the primary cost drivers in action productions of this scale.
• Production Design: Production Design, Sets & Locations is one of the primary cost drivers in action productions of this scale.

How Does Oblivion's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $120,000,000, Oblivion sits in the high-budget range. Here is how it compares to productions with a similar budget:

• Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003): Budget $120,000,000 , Gross $259,175,788
• Frankenstein (2025): Budget $120,000,000, Worldwide Gross $480,678
• Geostorm (2017): Budget $120,000,000, Worldwide Gross $221,600,160
• How Do You Know (2010): Budget $120,000,000, Worldwide Gross $48,668,907
• I, Robot (2004): Budget $120,000,000, Worldwide Gross $347,234,916

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

Oblivion Box Office Performance

"Oblivion" earned $89,107,235 domestically and $286,168,572 worldwide at the box office. Against a production budget of $120,000,000, the film showed modest profitability in theatrical release.

A film typically needs to earn approximately twice its production budget to cover marketing and distribution costs. For "Oblivion," that break-even threshold was roughly $240,000,000. With worldwide earnings of $286,168,572, the film cleared that threshold comfortably.

• Production Budget: $120,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: $286,168,572
• Net Return: $166,168,572
• ROI: approximately 138.5%

At 138.5%, "Oblivion" earned roughly $2.38 for every $1 invested in production.

Oblivion Production History

Tom Cruise had expressed interest in the film for a long time, and officially signed to play the lead role on May 20, 2011. On September 26, 2011, it was announced that Chastain had been cast. Chastain was subsequently offered the lead role in the Kathryn Bigelow film Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Cruise let her be released from her contract for Oblivion to make the other film, for which Chastain has publicly thanked Cruise.

Production began on March 12, 2012, and concluded on July 14, 2012. Filming locations included Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana. Out of approximately three months of shooting, 69 days were shot in Louisiana, from March through May 2012.

On June 28, 2012, it was announced that French electronic act M83, consisting solely of Anthony Gonzalez at the time, would compose the soundtrack for Oblivion. On why he chose M83 to score the film, director Joseph Kosinski said, "I went back and I found my first treatment for Oblivion from 2005 and it had listed in the treatment a soundtrack of M83. Obviously, the Tron: Legacy collaboration with Daft Punk worked out as good as I would have ever hoped, [so] I wanted to do something similar in that I'm pulling an artist from outside the movie business to create an original sound for this film." Kosinski continued, "Daft Punk's music wouldn't make sense for this movie.

Awards and Recognition

1 win & 17 nominations total

Critical Reception

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 53% based on 254 reviews and an average score of 5.90/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Visually striking but thinly scripted, Oblivion benefits greatly from its strong production values and an excellent performance from Tom Cruise." Metacritic gives the film a score of 54 out of 100 based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.