Production Budget Analysis

What was the production budget for Renfield?

Directed by Chris McKay, with Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina leading the cast, Renfield was produced by Skybound Entertainment with a confirmed budget of $65,000,000, placing it in the mid-budget category for comedy films.

With a $65,000,000 budget, Renfield sits in the mid-range of studio releases. Marketing costs for a wide release at this level typically add $30–60 million, putting the break-even point near $162,500,000.

Budget Comparison — Similar Productions

• 300 (2007): Budget $65,000,000 | Gross $456,082,343 → ROI: 602% • A Knight's Tale (2001): Budget $65,000,000 | Gross $117,487,473 → ROI: 81% • Collateral (2004): Budget $65,000,000 | Gross $220,239,925 → ROI: 239% • Eyes Wide Shut (1999): Budget $65,000,000 | Gross $162,100,000 → ROI: 149% • Marty Supreme (2025): Budget $65,000,000 | Gross $274,459,312 → ROI: 322%

Key Budget Allocation Categories

▸ Talent Salaries & Producing Deals Established comedic talent can command $15–20 million per film, with top-tier stars earning even more through producing credits and backend deals. Comedy ensembles multiply this cost across several well-known performers.

▸ 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. Studios typically spend 50–100% of the production budget on marketing, with comedy trailers and social media campaigns being particularly expensive.

Key Production Personnel

CAST: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo Key roles: Nicholas Hoult as Renfield; Nicolas Cage as Dracula; Awkwafina as Rebecca; Ben Schwartz as Tedward Lobo

DIRECTOR: Chris McKay CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mitchell Amundsen MUSIC: Marco Beltrami EDITING: Ryan Fosley, Giancarlo Ganziano PRODUCTION: Skybound Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Giant Wildcat FILMED IN: United States of America

Box Office Performance

Renfield earned $17,297,895 domestically and $9,576,452 internationally, for a worldwide total of $26,874,347. The film skewed heavily domestic (64%), suggesting strong North American appeal.

Break-Even Analysis

Using the industry-standard 2.5x multiplier (P&A + exhibitor shares of 40–50% + distribution fees), Renfield needed approximately $162,500,000 to break even. The film fell $135,625,653 short in theatrical revenue. Ancillary streams (home media, streaming, TV) may have bridged the gap.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Revenue: $26,874,347 Budget: $65,000,000 Net: $-38,125,653 ROI: -58.7%

Profitability Assessment

VERDICT: Unprofitable (Theatrical)

Renfield earned $26,874,347 against a $65,000,000 budget (-59% ROI), falling short of theatrical profitability. Ancillary revenue may have reduced the deficit.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

The underperformance may have increased risk aversion around mid-budget comedy productions.

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Casting

Nicholas Hoult was cast as Renfield in August 2021. Nicolas Cage was cast to play Count Dracula in November, Awkwafina and Ben Schwartz were added to the cast in December, and Adrian Martinez, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Bess Rous, James Moses Black, Caroline Williams, and Brandon Scott Jones were confirmed to star the following year. An "enormous" fan of Dracula and the source material, Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of the same name, Cage prepared for his role by observing the distinctive ways Dracula was portrayed on screen by Bela Lugosi, Frank Langella, and Gary Oldman. "What can I bring that will be different?", he said, "I want it to pop in a unique way. We've seen it played well, we've seen it play not so well, so what can we do? So I'm thinking to really focus on the movement of the character ... [and] that perfect tone of comedy and horror". Cage mentioned An American Werewolf in London (1981), Ring (1998), and Malignant (2021) as inspirations for the role. The film is Cage's first live-action film by a major studio since Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011).

Hoult would go on to star in Robert Eggers' Nosferatu (2024), another Dracula-themed film and a remake of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), itself a screen adaptation of Stoker's Dracula.

▸ Filming & Locations

Filming began in New Orleans on February 3, 2022, with Mitchell Amundsen serving as cinematographer. On February 8, more than twenty vehicles belonging to the production crew were burglarized. One security guard was present at the time of the incident, which occurred late at night in a secured parking lot. Crew member Elmo Peoples said the vandals had stolen his insurance papers, two bank cards, and a laptop. He added, "I'm supposed to be here all week and I don't even want to come back because I feel like they don't really care about us as much as the main characters or actors." Love Bugs Film LLC reassured the production crew that they would hire additional security. Filming wrapped on April 14, 2022, exactly one year prior to the film's scheduled release.

The film's black-and-white opening scenes recreate the events of Dracula (1931) with Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult respectively inserted in place of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye as Count Dracula and Renfield ("compositing the actors into the old backgrounds — we're just erasing [the original actors] and putting Cage and Hoult in"), with Helen Chandler and Edward Van Sloan appearing as Mina Seward and Abraham Van Helsing via archive footage. Zene Baker, Ryan Folsey and Giancarlo Ganziano served as editors.

[Filming] Filming began in New Orleans on February 3, 2022, with Mitchell Amundsen serving as cinematographer. On February 8, more than twenty vehicles belonging to the production crew were burglarized. One security guard was present at the time of the incident, which occurred late at night in a secured parking lot. Crew member Elmo Peoples said the vandals had stolen his insurance papers, two bank cards, and a laptop. He added, "I'm supposed to be here all week and I don't even want to come back because I feel like they don't really care about us as much as the main characters or actors." Love Bugs Film LLC reassured the production crew that they would hire additional security.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: 2 wins & 13 nominations total

Additional Recognition: Renfield received a nomination for Best Comedy Poster at the 2023 Golden Trailer Awards. At the 51st Saturn Awards, it received 5 nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for Nicolas Cage.

CRITICAL RECEPTION

Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it an 86% positive score. Amy Nicholson of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "The small gags are great, the overall story arc is weak—particularly a quasi-romantic subplot where a cop (Awkwafina) challenges Renfield to turn from heel to hero", and gave the film a B grade.

Conversely, Kevin Maher of The Times gave the film a score of two out of five stars, calling it "a gore-splattered, consistently tiresome, one-joke movie that could only have been pitched in a Hollywood development meeting as, you know, 'It's fucking Dracula! Alison Willmore of Vulture praised the film's premise, but said it had "maybe a comedy sketch's worth of ideas to stretch over a feature-length run time." ABC News's Peter Travers wrote, "what started as a clever, contemporary spin on the Dracula myth gets swallowed up into a quicksand of cartoonishly repetitive, R-rated action cliches that make Renfield seem too long at a scant 93 minutes."