The High Note Budget

What Is the Budget of The High Note (2020)?

The High Note (2020), directed by Nisha Ganatra and released by Focus Features, did not have its exact production budget publicly disclosed. Industry reporting at the time of release placed the budget at under $20,000,000, consistent with Working Title Films' mid-budget comedy slate of the late 2010s. The film was financed by Universal Pictures' specialty arm with co-financing from Perfect World Pictures, the Beijing-based company that held a slate deal with Universal from 2016 through 2021.

The shoot ran a conventional schedule across Los Angeles in early 2019, with no significant visual effects work and a contemporary, urban production design that allowed costs to stay contained. Where the budget did expand was on the music side: the film featured original songs co-written by Sarah Aarons, Greg Kurstin, and others, recorded by Tracee Ellis Ross and Kelvin Harrison Jr., plus a soundtrack of period and contemporary needle drops that carried meaningful publishing and master licensing fees.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

Based on the production scale, crew composition, and music-industry subject matter, the budget was distributed across these areas:

• Above-the-Line Cast: Tracee Ellis Ross, Dakota Johnson, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ice Cube, Bill Pullman, Eddie Izzard, and Zoë Chao led the principal cast. Ross and Johnson commanded the highest quotes as the central pairing, with Ice Cube and Bill Pullman drawing supporting-role fees. Kelvin Harrison Jr. was emerging at the time, coming off Luce, and signed at a lower tier.
• Director and Writer Fees: Nisha Ganatra was hired off the back of Late Night (2019) and commanded an established-director fee. Screenwriter Flora Greeson was making her feature debut, having developed the project from her own spec script that landed on the 2018 Black List, and was paid at the WGA minimum-plus tier typical for a first-time produced screenwriter.
• Original Songs and Score: Five original songs were written for the film, including the closing-credits track Like I Do, recorded by Tracee Ellis Ross. Songwriters included Sarah Aarons, Greg Kurstin, Rodney Jerkins, and Diane Warren, all working at top-of-market rates with publishing splits. Composer Amie Doherty wrote the underscore. This was the single most distinctive line item versus a comparable rom-com of the same scale.
• Music Licensing and Needle Drops: The soundtrack folded in licensed tracks across multiple eras, each requiring synchronization fees to publishers and master-use fees to labels. Music-industry films of this kind routinely carry licensing budgets between $750,000 and $2,500,000 depending on the era and prominence of the tracks selected.
• Los Angeles Production: Principal photography took place across Los Angeles, California, including locations meant to evoke the upper tier of the contemporary music industry: Hollywood Hills mansions, recording studios, and the Greek Theatre. As an in-state shoot, the production was eligible for the California Film and Television Tax Credit Program, which can rebate up to 25 percent of qualified spend.
• Below-the-Line Crew: Cinematographer Jason McCormick shot the film in a polished, music-video-influenced style. Editor Wendy Greene Bricmont, a veteran of Working Title comedies, cut the picture in Los Angeles. Production designer Theresa Guleserian created the contemporary Los Angeles music-world look. The crew was standard size for a contemporary comedy with multiple stage performance sequences.
• Marketing and Distribution Pivot: Focus Features had planned a wide theatrical release on May 8, 2020. The COVID-19 theater shutdown forced a pivot to a premium video-on-demand release on May 29, 2020, at $19.99. Marketing spend was reduced relative to the original theatrical plan, with billboards and television buys scaled back and a focused digital and PVOD-platform push taking their place.

How Does The High Note's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

The High Note sits within a clear comparison set of music-industry films and director-driven mid-budget comedies, most of which have public theatrical budgets:

• Begin Again (2013): Budget $8,000,000 | Worldwide $63,500,000. John Carney's New York music drama starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo cost less than half of The High Note's likely budget and broke out at the box office, illustrating the upside that can come from a music-industry premise when paired with theatrical exhibition.
• A Star Is Born (2018): Budget $36,000,000 | Worldwide $436,200,000. Bradley Cooper's directorial debut spent roughly twice what The High Note likely cost and grossed nearly two hundred times more, demonstrating the asymmetric returns possible for music films that catch the cultural moment, an outcome the 2020 release window denied The High Note.
• Music & Lyrics (2007): Budget $40,000,000 | Worldwide $145,800,000. The Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore music romcom was made at roughly double the budget more than a decade earlier and benefited from a full theatrical platform, giving a useful baseline for how a music-industry rom-com can perform without a pandemic disruption.
• Late Night (2019): Budget $4,000,000 | Worldwide $22,400,000. Nisha Ganatra's previous feature was made at a fraction of The High Note's budget but its successful Sundance acquisition by Amazon for $13 million is what put Ganatra in position to direct a Focus Features title at a meaningfully larger scale.
• Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019): Budget $3,000,000 | Worldwide undisclosed. Paul Downs Colaizzo's Amazon Studios indie offers a low-end comparison for what an emerging director can deliver, and shows the gap between an indie acquisition and a Working Title produced studio comedy at the scale of The High Note.
• The Photograph (2020): Budget $16,000,000 | Worldwide $20,800,000. Released by Universal three months before The High Note in February 2020 just before theaters closed, this Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield romance offers the closest direct comparison: similar budget tier, similar audience, and a Universal-released contemporary romance.

The High Note Box Office Performance

The High Note was caught directly in the COVID-19 theatrical shutdown. Originally scheduled for a wide release on May 8, 2020, the film was pulled when American theaters closed in mid-March and was redirected to a premium video-on-demand release on May 29, 2020, at a $19.99 rental price. In its opening weekend, the film was the second-most rented title on FandangoNow, third-most on the iTunes Store, and eleventh-most on Amazon Prime Video. Focus Features and Universal Pictures International later opened the film theatrically in markets where exhibition had reopened, including Australia, South Korea, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and France, where it accumulated a modest international gross through the summer of 2020.

The full financial breakdown reflects the hybrid PVOD and limited international theatrical model:

• Production Budget: not publicly disclosed (reported under $20,000,000)
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): reduced from original theatrical plan; estimated at approximately $5,000,000 to $8,000,000 for the PVOD pivot
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $25,000,000 to $28,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: $2,217,874 (international theatrical only, per Box Office Mojo)
• Net Return: theatrical gross alone did not recover investment; PVOD revenue not publicly reported
• ROI: not calculable from public data given the unreported PVOD revenue

Because the United States gross was generated through PVOD rather than ticket sales, conventional theatrical math does not capture the film's performance. Industry reporting at the time suggested The High Note was one of the more successful PVOD releases of the early COVID period in the United States, though Focus Features and Universal have not disclosed the specific revenue. Like Trolls World Tour, which Universal released into PVOD a month earlier, The High Note became part of the early case study for the economics of the premium-rental window.

Internationally, the film opened in Australia at $497,604, South Korea at $392,737, and Hong Kong at $245,767, reflecting markets where theaters had reopened by mid-2020. The streaming-revenue outlook for the film, through ongoing Peacock and library viewing, has been the primary measure of its long-tail performance rather than the limited theatrical window.

The High Note Production History

The project began with a spec script by Flora Greeson titled Covers, which landed on the 2018 Black List, the annual industry survey of the most-liked unproduced screenplays. Working Title Films acquired the script, with Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner producing through their longstanding Universal deal and co-producer Anna DeRoy attached. Nisha Ganatra came on to direct in early 2019, coming off her Sundance hit Late Night, which Amazon had acquired for $13 million the year prior.

Casting moved quickly through the spring of 2019. Tracee Ellis Ross, in her first lead feature role after eight seasons as the lead of ABC's Black-ish, was cast as Grace Davis. Notably, Ross performed all of her own vocals in the film, marking her recording debut and contributing original tracks to the soundtrack. Dakota Johnson signed on as Maggie shortly after, followed by Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ice Cube, Bill Pullman, and Eddie Izzard rounding out the supporting cast. The film was originally announced under the working title Covers.

Principal photography took place in Los Angeles, California, in spring 2019, with the production qualifying for the California Film and Television Tax Credit Program. Locations included Hollywood Hills properties standing in for Grace Davis's mansion, recording studio interiors, and the Greek Theatre for the climactic concert sequence. The shoot wrapped on schedule for a planned spring 2020 release.

Music production ran in parallel with the shoot. Songwriters Sarah Aarons, Greg Kurstin, Rodney Jerkins, and Diane Warren contributed original songs. Like I Do, the closing-credits track recorded by Tracee Ellis Ross, was released as a single ahead of the film. Composer Amie Doherty, who had scored Spirit Untamed and emerged from the Sundance Composer Lab, wrote the underscore.

In March 2020, with the May 8 wide release approaching, theaters across the United States and most international markets closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Focus Features and Universal decided to release the film to premium video-on-demand on May 29, 2020, at $19.99, becoming one of the earliest mid-budget studio films to make the pivot. Theatrical openings followed later in 2020 in international markets as exhibition reopened.

Awards and Recognition

The High Note received a focused awards run at the People's Choice Awards and the Black Reel Awards alongside critic-circle attention for Tracee Ellis Ross's lead performance. At the 2020 People's Choice Awards, the film was nominated for The Drama Movie of 2020 and Tracee Ellis Ross was nominated for The Drama Movie Star of 2020.

Tracee Ellis Ross received the Excellence in Music Award at the 2020 Hollywood Music in Media Awards for her work on the soundtrack, recognizing both her vocal performances in the film and her co-writing credits on selected tracks. At the 2021 Black Reel Awards, the film picked up nominations including Outstanding Original Score for Amie Doherty and Outstanding Original Song for Like I Do, performed by Ross. Variety, Entertainment Weekly, and The Hollywood Reporter included the film on several best-soundtrack and best-music-film lists for 2020.

Critical Reception

The High Note received generally favorable reviews from critics, with particular praise reserved for the performances of Tracee Ellis Ross and Kelvin Harrison Jr. The film holds a 71% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 189 reviews, with an average score of 6.1 out of 10. The critical consensus states that the film does not quite soar above rom-com formula but is buoyed by appealing performances. On Metacritic, the film scored 58 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating mixed or average reviews.

Supporters singled out Tracee Ellis Ross's lead performance as a revelation, with Variety's Owen Gleiberman calling her work a star turn that proved she could carry a film, and noting that her vocal performances added a layer of authenticity that distinguished the picture from comparable music-industry fare. The Hollywood Reporter praised Kelvin Harrison Jr. as the breakout of the film and described Nisha Ganatra's direction as warm and observational, citing the chemistry between Ross and Dakota Johnson as the spine of the picture.

Detractors argued that Flora Greeson's screenplay leaned too heavily on familiar music-industry beats and that a third-act twist felt unearned. Critics writing for The New York Times and IndieWire noted that the film delivered an enjoyable surface but did not push past the conventions of the genre, with The New York Times calling it pleasant but predictable. Even less favorable reviews acknowledged that Ross was the engine of the film and that her music sequences were highlights. Audience response, reflected in a CinemaScore-equivalent A-minus average on PVOD platforms and strong word-of-mouth on Rotten Tomatoes' audience score, ran warmer than the critical reception.