The Hole in the Ground Budget

What Is the Budget of The Hole in the Ground (2019)?

The Hole in the Ground (2019), directed by Lee Cronin and released theatrically in the United States by A24 on March 1, 2019, was produced on an undisclosed budget estimated between $2,000,000 and $5,000,000. The film was a co-production of Savage Productions (Ireland), Bankside Films (United Kingdom), Headgear Films (United Kingdom), and Wrong Men North (Belgium), with funding through Screen Ireland, the BFI, the Belgian Tax Shelter, and Section 481 Irish film tax relief.

At an estimated $2,000,000 to $5,000,000, the production cost was characteristic of the European indie-horror tier of the late 2010s, comparable to other Section 481-supported Irish horror productions of the era. The budget was assembled through the multi-territory European co-production model that defines much of contemporary Irish film financing, with A24 acquiring United States distribution rights at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival following the film's January 26, 2019 Midnight section world premiere.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The estimated $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 budget covered the core categories of a European-co-production indie horror:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Seána Kerslake (A Date for Mad Mary) led the cast as Sarah O'Neill, with newcomer James Quinn Markey as her son Chris, and supporting roles for James Cosmo (Game of Thrones, Braveheart) and Kati Outinen (the Aki Kaurismäki regular). The Irish and British cast worked at indie-horror compensation rates. Director Lee Cronin commanded a first-time-feature-director rate.
• Ireland Production: Principal photography ran in spring 2018 in Ireland, primarily in County Wicklow with additional work in Dublin and rural Leinster forest locations. The production utilized Ireland's 32% to 37% Section 481 film tax credit, the foundational financial anchor of the project. The forest setting was central to the film's visual identity.
• Production Design: Production designer Conor Dennison built the isolated cottage interior, the recovered antique-Irish-rural details of the surrounding farmhouses, and the climactic sinkhole sequence environments. The sinkhole itself was a combination of practical excavation and VFX extension, with the practical hole excavated on a Wicklow forest location.
• Cinematography: Director of photography Tom Comerford shot the film on digital with a desaturated, cool-toned palette designed to amplify the Irish forest's natural overcast quality. The cinematography won extensive critical praise and was the largest craft investment after production design.
• Score and Sound Design: Composer Stephen McKeon wrote an original score combining traditional Irish instrumentation with horror-genre orchestral textures. Sound design budget covered the layered forest soundscape and the supernatural-coding audio cues central to the film's slow-burn tension.
• Visual Effects: The film leaned on practical effects and contained CGI work, with VFX vendors completing approximately 100 shots primarily for the sinkhole sequences and the late-film supernatural transformations. The contained VFX scope kept the budget below the elevated-horror norm of contemporary A24 features.

How Does The Hole in the Ground's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At an estimated $2,000,000 to $5,000,000, The Hole in the Ground sits at the low end of the European-and-A24 indie horror tier. The comparison set:

• The Babadook (2014): Budget $2,000,000 | Worldwide $10,300,000. Jennifer Kent's Australian psychological horror, released by IFC Films, sits at the low end of the same indie-horror tier as The Hole in the Ground and represents the closest scale comparison.
• Saint Maud (2019): Budget $1,800,000 | Worldwide $3,200,000. Rose Glass' A24 horror debut sits in the same European-co-production-indie-horror tier as The Hole in the Ground.
• Hereditary (2018): Budget $10,000,000 | Worldwide $80,300,000. Ari Aster's A24 horror cost approximately two to five times the Hole in the Ground estimate and earned approximately ten times its worldwide gross, demonstrating the upside ceiling that the Hole in the Ground did not reach.
• The Conjuring (2013): Budget $20,000,000 | Worldwide $319,500,000. James Wan's wide-release horror cost roughly five to ten times the Hole in the Ground estimate and represents the studio-horror upside benchmark.
• Sinister (2012): Budget $3,000,000 | Worldwide $87,700,000. Scott Derrickson's Blumhouse horror occupied the same micro-budget tier as The Hole in the Ground and demonstrates the unpredictable theatrical multiples that indie horror occasionally achieves.

The Hole in the Ground Box Office Performance

The Hole in the Ground premiered in the Midnight section of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2019. A24 acquired United States distribution rights immediately following the premiere and released the film theatrically in the United States on March 1, 2019 in a limited release.

Against an estimated production budget of $2,000,000 to $5,000,000, the financial picture is as follows:

• Production Budget: estimated $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 (Section 481 tax-credit anchored)
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $3,000,000 to $5,000,000
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $5,000,000 to $10,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: $1,032,477 (limited theatrical)
• Net Return: recouped through home video, streaming licensing, and international theatrical (combined undisclosed)
• ROI: theatrical alone returned approximately 10% to 20% of estimated total investment

The film's United States theatrical gross was modest at $621,758, with international gross adding $410,719 for a worldwide theatrical total of $1,032,477. The film performed substantially better on premium video-on-demand and home video, with A24's release strategy treating theatrical exhibition as a brand-building and review-anchor window rather than the primary revenue source.

From the production's commercial perspective, the film recouped its production cost primarily through international theatrical, home video, and streaming licensing rather than United States theatrical. Streaming availability on Netflix and Shudder substantially extended the film's commercial life through 2020 and 2021. Lee Cronin's subsequent assignment to direct Evil Dead Rise (2023) is widely cited as the primary career outcome that validated the original financial commitment.

The Hole in the Ground Production History

Lee Cronin developed the screenplay with co-writer Stephen Shields beginning in 2015, drawing on Irish folk-horror traditions, changeling mythology, and the practical-supernatural-horror approach of contemporary A24 releases including The Witch (2015). The project moved through Screen Ireland's development funding before securing co-production financing through Bankside Films and Headgear Films in the United Kingdom and Wrong Men North in Belgium.

The Belgian Tax Shelter and Section 481 Irish film tax credit anchored the multi-territory financing. The European co-production structure required some Belgian post-production deliverables and below-the-line spend, with several VFX, music, and sound-design vendors based in Brussels. Bankside Films handled the worldwide sales agency.

Principal photography ran in spring 2018 in Ireland, primarily in County Wicklow with additional work in Dublin and rural Leinster forest locations. The production utilized Ireland's 32% to 37% Section 481 film tax credit. The practical sinkhole was excavated on a Wicklow forest location, with VFX extensions completed in post-production. Lee Cronin shot most of the supernatural-coding sequences practically, with limited CGI work confined to the final-act transformation set pieces.

The film completed post-production in late 2018 ahead of its January 2019 Sundance Film Festival world premiere. A24 acquired United States distribution rights at Sundance, with international distribution handled by Vertigo Releasing (United Kingdom) and Wild Bunch (multiple territories) on a Bankside-led sales campaign. Lee Cronin's strong critical and festival reception led directly to his subsequent assignment by Sam Raimi to direct Evil Dead Rise (2023).

Awards and Recognition

The Hole in the Ground received recognition primarily from the Irish film industry and genre-specialist ceremonies. The film was nominated at the 2019 Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) Awards for Best Film, Best Director (Lee Cronin), Best Lead Actress in a Film (Seána Kerslake), Best Cinematography (Tom Comerford), and Best Production Design (Conor Dennison), winning two of the categories.

At the 2019 Sitges Film Festival, the film was nominated for Best Film in the official competition. Lee Cronin won the Discovery Award at the 2019 Dinard Festival of British Cinema. Seána Kerslake received nominations from the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards for Best Actress. The film was not nominated at the Academy Awards, BAFTAs, or Saturn Awards.

Critical Reception

The Hole in the Ground received generally positive reviews. The film holds an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 124 critic reviews, with a critical consensus that praised the slow-burn atmosphere, Seána Kerslake's lead performance, and Lee Cronin's assured first-feature direction. On Metacritic, the film scored 64 out of 100, indicating generally favorable reviews.

Critics broadly praised Seána Kerslake's grounded performance as the increasingly unsettled Sarah and James Quinn Markey's precisely uncanny turn as Chris. The Hollywood Reporter's Boyd van Hoeij wrote that the film "achieves a deliberate, almost ceremonial dread that builds across the runtime," while Variety's Owen Gleiberman called Lee Cronin "a director with a real feel for menace." The New York Times' Glenn Kenny praised the film's "patient confidence" and noted that it "respects its audience's attention in ways that more bombastic horror seldom does."

Several critics flagged the climactic third act as conventional relative to the film's sustained atmospheric build-up, with multiple reviews comparing the resolution unfavorably to the open-ended ambiguity of the strongest A24 elevated horror. The general consensus, however, treated the film as a confident debut from a director with a clear sensibility, and the prediction of larger genre assignments was borne out by Lee Cronin's subsequent Evil Dead Rise (2023) Sam Raimi-produced studio horror feature.