The Devil's Own Budget

What Is the Budget of The Devil's Own (1997)?

The Devil's Own (1997), directed by Alan J. Pakula and distributed by Columbia Pictures, was produced on a budget of $90,000,000, a figure that ballooned dramatically from an initial $35,000,000 projection during pre-production due to extensive script reworking, multiple shooting starts, and a star-driven production process that became one of the most-publicized troubled shoots of the 1990s. Lawrence Gordon and Robert Colesberry produced through Lawrence Gordon Productions, with Columbia Pictures providing studio finance.

The budget reflected the combined dynamics of two of the era's highest-paid stars (Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford), an unresolved screenplay, and a production that began shooting before key creative decisions had been settled. Trade press during and after the production extensively documented script rewrites by multiple writers (including David Aaron Cohen, Vincent Patrick, and Kevin Jarre), a near-shutdown midway through filming, and Pitt's public dissatisfaction with the project. The math required the film to clear roughly $190,000,000 worldwide to break even after marketing, a target it missed.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The Devil's Own's $90,000,000 budget was distributed across several core production areas:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Harrison Ford commanded a $20,000,000 lead fee plus back-end participation, his standard mid-1990s rate. Brad Pitt, then in his post-Se7en breakout period, took a reported $11,000,000 plus participation. Supporting performances by Margaret Colin, Treat Williams, Rubén Blades, and Mitchell Ryan absorbed additional ATL spend, with veteran director Pakula commanding a feature-director fee appropriate to a star-driven studio thriller.
• Multiple Screenplay Drafts: Kevin Jarre wrote the original spec script, with David Aaron Cohen, Vincent Patrick, and Robert Mark Kamen each delivering subsequent drafts as the project evolved during pre-production and filming. Each rewrite carried Writers Guild minimum and additional negotiated fees, and the ongoing script reworking pushed both the development line and the principal-photography schedule well beyond initial estimates.
• New York Location Shoot: Principal photography ran extensively in New York and New Jersey, with the unit shooting Manhattan, Staten Island, and outer-borough locations. New York's deep crew infrastructure and union scale combined with extended shooting schedules to produce a below-the-line line significantly above the original budget estimates.
• Ireland and Northern Ireland Sequences: Producers shot opening sequences and pickups in County Wicklow, Ireland, with second-unit work covering Northern Ireland backgrounds. Insurance for the politically sensitive Northern Ireland material and the cost of the international unit added meaningfully to the production line.
• Action and Stunt Sequences: The brownstone shootout, the boat sequence, and multiple New York chase set pieces required dedicated stunt coordination, weapons handling, and SFX work. The third-act tugboat finale, in particular, required practical maritime production with a dedicated water unit.
• Reshoots and Pickup Photography: Multiple reshoots and pickup days throughout 1996 added significantly to the final cost, with Pakula returning the principal cast for revised sequences after the initial assembly proved structurally unworkable. Trade press estimated the reshoots alone added $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 to the production line.

How Does The Devil's Own's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $90,000,000, The Devil's Own sits in the upper-middle range of mid-1990s star-driven thrillers. The comparison set illustrates how the production's commercial outcome diverged from its peer set:

• Air Force One (1997): Budget $85,000,000 | Worldwide $315,180,167. Wolfgang Petersen's Harrison Ford action vehicle cost slightly less, released months later, and earned more than double The Devil's Own's worldwide gross, reset Ford's commercial profile after the Pakula production's struggles.
• Patriot Games (1992): Budget $42,000,000 | Worldwide $178,051,587. Ford's previous IRA-themed thriller cost less than half what The Devil's Own cost and earned 25% more worldwide, illustrating the steep escalation in production costs across the five-year gap.
• Seven Years in Tibet (1997): Budget $70,000,000 | Worldwide $131,460,210. Brad Pitt's same-year period vehicle cost less and posted similar worldwide receipts, suggesting the actor's commercial profile alone could not lift either film above modest performance.
• Ransom (1996): Budget $80,000,000 | Worldwide $309,492,681. Ron Howard's Mel Gibson thriller from the prior year cost slightly less and earned more than twice The Devil's Own's worldwide gross, the kind of upside Columbia had projected for the Pakula production.
• Conspiracy Theory (1997): Budget $80,000,000 | Worldwide $136,997,664. The Mel Gibson-Julia Roberts contemporary thriller from the same summer earned almost exactly the same worldwide total at a slightly lower budget, the closest comparable performance of the period.

The Devil's Own Box Office Performance

The Devil's Own opened on March 26, 1997, debuting to $14,378,625 in its opening weekend across 2,510 theaters, finishing first on the chart and modestly below Columbia's pre-release tracking. The film held reasonably for an Easter-weekend frame but never developed the legs to extend into late spring, with subsequent weekend declines steeper than expected for a major-star vehicle.

Against a $90,000,000 production budget, The Devil's Own needed roughly $190,000,000 in worldwide gross to reach profitability when accounting for marketing and distribution costs. Here is the financial breakdown:

• Production Budget: $90,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $60,000,000 to $75,000,000
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $150,000,000 to $165,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: $140,807,547
• Net Return: approximately $10,000,000 to $25,000,000 theatrical loss
• ROI: approximately negative 10% theatrical (against total estimated investment)

The Devil's Own returned approximately $0.90 in theatrical revenue for every $1 invested when measured against total estimated production and marketing spend. The domestic share of the gross was $42,869,261 against an international share of $97,938,286, a 30/70 split heavily weighted toward international markets, suggesting that the IRA subject matter played significantly stronger in Europe and Australia than in North America.

Columbia recouped a meaningful share of the loss through home entertainment, television licensing, and downstream library value driven by the Pitt-Ford combination. The film's troubled production became a frequently-cited case study in Hollywood trade press during the late 1990s, with extensive Premiere and Vanity Fair coverage analyzing the script-reworking process, the star-director dynamics, and the budget escalation. Pakula directed only one more feature (1997's The Devil's Own was his final completed film before his death in a 1998 traffic accident).

The Devil's Own Production History

Development began in the early 1990s when Kevin Jarre (Tombstone, Glory) wrote an original spec script focused on the moral collision between an IRA volunteer and an NYPD officer who unwittingly harbors him. Lawrence Gordon and Robert Colesberry attached as producers, and Columbia Pictures financed under chairman Mark Canton. Brad Pitt committed to the lead role in 1995, with Harrison Ford joining shortly after on the strength of Pitt's attachment and the studio's commitment to a major spring 1997 release.

Alan J. Pakula, the veteran director of All the President's Men (1976), Klute (1971), and Presumed Innocent (1990), attached to direct in late 1995. Pakula entered the project understanding that Jarre's spec required additional development work, but the extent of the screenplay reworking that ultimately occurred during principal photography surprised both Pakula and the studio. David Aaron Cohen, Vincent Patrick, and Robert Mark Kamen each delivered substantial drafts during pre-production and filming.

Principal photography began in March 1996 with portions of the screenplay still actively being rewritten. Trade press extensively documented the on-set dynamics, with Pitt publicly expressing dissatisfaction with the project's direction in a Newsweek interview during production that Columbia executives later disputed. The shoot encompassed New York and New Jersey exteriors, soundstage interiors, Ireland location work in County Wicklow, and multiple rounds of pickups and reshoots that pushed the production into late 1996.

Post-production extended into early 1997, with structural editing required to assemble the multiple shooting blocks into a coherent narrative. Columbia positioned the film for an Easter weekend 1997 release, with marketing emphasizing the Pitt-Ford pairing rather than the specific IRA subject matter. The campaign's deliberate softening of the political content was a response to test-screening feedback indicating American audiences had limited interest in detailed Northern Ireland politics.

Awards and Recognition

The Devil's Own received no major awards recognition. It was not nominated at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, SAG Awards, or Critics' Choice Awards.

At the Razzies, the film received a single Worst Original Song nomination for "Be Yourself" by Sinéad O'Connor, performed over the closing credits. The Devil's Own has since become a frequently-cited case study in entertainment journalism and film-business books examining mid-1990s studio dynamics, star compensation, and the consequences of beginning principal photography on an unresolved screenplay. Pakula's death in a New York traffic accident in November 1998 added a retrospective somber framing to the film's legacy as the director's final completed feature.

Critical Reception

The Devil's Own received mixed-to-negative reviews. The film holds a 51% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 critic reviews, with a critical consensus that called it a competently mounted but tonally muddled thriller. On Metacritic, the film scored 47 out of 100, indicating mixed-to-average reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a B-, slightly below the B+ that typically signals viable word-of-mouth potential.

Critics broadly praised the central Pitt-Ford pairing and the New York atmosphere while objecting to a screenplay that several reviewers found tonally confused. Roger Ebert awarded the film two and a half stars, writing that "the actors do what they can, but the script never decides what it wants to be." The New York Times' Janet Maslin called the film "a thriller with the makings of something better, undone by a development process that left its central moral question half-formed." Variety's Joe Leydon noted that "the troubled production shows on screen, with the characters speaking past each other in service of plot points that the script seems uncertain how to land."

Critical retrospectives have generally treated The Devil's Own as a representative example of late-1990s star-driven studio thrillers that began shooting on unresolved screenplays and paid the cost in both budget escalation and tonal incoherence. The film's reputation has been further shaped by extensive Premiere and Vanity Fair production journalism that became required reading in screenwriting and film-business curricula. Despite the mixed reception, the Pitt-Ford pairing has continued to generate interest among genre audiences and remains a regular touchstone in discussions of the IRA-themed thriller cycle.