Set It Up Budget

What Is the Budget of Set It Up (2018)?

Set It Up (2018), directed by Claire Scanlon from a screenplay by Katie Silberman, was produced on an estimated budget of approximately $8,000,000. The figure has not been formally disclosed by Netflix, but the contained New York City office-and-apartment location footprint, the four-handed young-ensemble structure, and the platform's standard original-romantic-comedy spend pattern from this cycle all support a figure in the high-seven-to-low-eight-figure range.

The film was financed and produced by Netflix in association with Treehouse Pictures and Eat the Cat, with the project anchored around Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell's lead pairing and the established-lead supporting work of Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs as the demanding bosses. Netflix released the film globally on the platform on June 15, 2018, with no theatrical window.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The estimated $8,000,000 budget covered a contained New York City workplace-romantic-comedy:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell anchored the film at emerging-lead rates appropriate to a contained workplace-romcom. Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs took the established-supporting roles as the demanding sports-editor and venture-capitalist bosses respectively, with both actors bringing post-Charlie's Angels and post-Private Practice profile to the supporting cast. Pete Davidson took a supporting-friend role at a then-Saturday-Night-Live-cast-member rate.
• Director-Writer Package: Claire Scanlon took a first-feature director fee after her television-comedy directing slate that included The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Katie Silberman took a feature-writer fee on the screenplay, which she had developed across 2016 to 2017.
• New York City Location Footprint: Principal photography took place across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens during summer 2017, with the office, apartment, restaurant, Yankee Stadium, and rooftop-party location list forming the contained shooting footprint. The New York shoot pushed location and crew costs into a meaningful line item.
• Cinematography: Stuart Dryburgh shot the film with a saturated New York summer register and the conventional workplace-romcom visual language that the contained location list required. The camera package and lighting design across the contained location list were a notable spend.
• Music Licensing: The film's soundtrack relied on a mix of contemporary pop and licensed cues, with Michael Andrews's original score anchoring the romantic-comedy beats. The music licensing across the contained selection was a moderate percentage of the total budget.
• Post-Production and Netflix Delivery: Editorial, color, sound mix, and the Netflix global delivery package completed the finishing pipeline ahead of the June 15, 2018 worldwide release.

How Does Set It Up's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

Set It Up sits in the Netflix-original workplace-romcom landscape alongside comparable titles from the same cycle:

• To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018): Budget approximately $12,000,000 | Worldwide Netflix release. Susan Johnson's Netflix breakout at $4M more in budget offers the closest streaming-romcom peer.
• Someone Great (2019): Budget approximately $10,000,000 | Worldwide Netflix release. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson's Netflix romcom at $2M more in budget offers the closest tonal peer.
• Always Be My Maybe (2019): Budget approximately $15,000,000 | Worldwide Netflix release. Nahnatchka Khan's Netflix romcom at nearly twice the budget offers the closest established-talent peer.
• The Half of It (2020): Budget approximately $10,000,000 | Worldwide Netflix release. Alice Wu's Netflix queer romance at $2M more in budget offers the closest writer-director-by-a-woman peer.

Set It Up Box Office Performance

Set It Up was released globally on Netflix on June 15, 2018 with no theatrical window. As a Netflix-original streaming-exclusive release, the film has no reported theatrical gross. Netflix reported the film as one of the platform's strongest-performing original romcoms across the 2018 release slate and a key proof-of-concept that helped accelerate the platform's romcom-original commissioning pipeline through the late-2010s.

Against an estimated $8,000,000 production budget, the financial breakdown:

• Production Budget: approximately $8,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): not applicable; Netflix in-platform marketing
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $8,000,000 production cost absorbed into Netflix originals slate
• Worldwide Gross: not applicable; streaming-exclusive release
• Net Return: measured via Netflix subscriber engagement, not box-office recovery
• ROI: not measurable on box-office basis; Netflix originals economics

Set It Up had no theatrical release and therefore no reported box-office gross. The film's commercial value to Netflix was measured via subscriber acquisition, retention, and engagement around the June 15, 2018 launch and the subsequent long-tail catalog value. The film was widely credited as a key data point in Netflix's broader romcom-original investment thesis through 2019 to 2021.

Set It Up Production History

Set It Up originated as Katie Silberman's spec screenplay, developed across 2016 to 2017 in the romantic-comedy revival landscape that Netflix was building under its originals pipeline. The screenplay's high-concept young-assistants premise, in which two overworked assistants conspire to set their demanding bosses up romantically so they can reclaim their own evenings and weekends, drew on the workplace-romcom tradition while updating it for the contemporary smartphone-and-app era.

Principal photography took place across New York City during summer 2017, with the Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens location list forming the contained shooting footprint. Zoey Deutch took the lead role as Harper, with Glen Powell as Charlie. Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs anchored the supporting cast as the demanding bosses Kirsten and Rick. The supporting cast included Pete Davidson, Jon Rudnitsky, Meredith Hagner, Tituss Burgess, and Joan Smalls.

The film premiered globally on Netflix on June 15, 2018 with no theatrical window. The release was supported by a robust Netflix in-platform marketing campaign and drew strong viewership and critical praise that positioned the film as one of the platform's strongest-performing original romcoms of the year.

Awards and Recognition

Set It Up received first-feature director and original-screenplay attention across the 2019 awards cycle. Katie Silberman's screenplay drew comparisons to the classical workplace-romcom tradition and helped position her for subsequent projects, including the screenplay for Booksmart (2019) and Don't Worry Darling (2022). The film received Critics' Choice Television Award consideration in the made-for-television-or-streaming category and Imagen Foundation Awards attention for the supporting performances. Glen Powell's lead-romcom positioning following the film contributed to his subsequent breakout pipeline through Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone but You.

Critical Reception

Set It Up received broadly positive reviews. The film holds a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on more than 80 critic reviews, with a critical consensus that praised Claire Scanlon's confident debut direction, the central chemistry between Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell, Katie Silberman's classical-romcom screenplay, and the strong supporting work by Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs. Metacritic recorded a score of 62 out of 100, indicating generally favorable reviews. CinemaScore did not poll the film given its streaming-exclusive release.

Critics broadly praised the central chemistry between Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell, the screenplay's commitment to the classical workplace-romcom structure executed with smartphone-and-app-era updates, and the strong supporting work by Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs as the demanding bosses. Vulture's Jen Chaney called the film "the best romantic comedy on Netflix," and Variety's Owen Gleiberman praised the lead pairing as "the freshest romcom couple in years." Common reservations cited a third-act structural reliance on conventional genre beats. The reception positioned Set It Up as a key data point in the Netflix-romcom-revival thesis that the platform expanded through the late 2010s.