The Invention of Lying Budget
ComedyUpdated
Synopsis
In a world where no one has ever told a lie, struggling screenwriter Mark Bellison stumbles upon the ability to say things that are not true. He uses his new power for personal gain and accidentally invents religion when he comforts his dying mother with a story about the afterlife. Ricky Gervais writes, directs, and stars alongside Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, and Louis C.K.
What Is the Budget of The Invention of Lying (2009)?
The Invention of Lying (2009) was produced on a production budget of approximately $18,500,000. The production budget covered above-the-line talent, principal photography, post-production, visual effects, and marketing. This budget reflects industry norms for the genre and scale at the time of production.
Key Budget Allocation Categories
The production allocated funds across the following categories:
Cast Salaries: Ricky Gervais in the lead with Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Jeffrey Tambor, and cameos from Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Guest, John Hodgman, and Jason Bateman.
Locations: Practical exteriors and interiors shot across the Massachusetts cities of Lowell, Boston, Marblehead, and Cambridge.
Production Design: Subtle alternate-reality dressing that kept the world recognizable while stripping out fiction, advertising flourishes, and decoration.
Costumes and Hair: Period-neutral contemporary costuming with character-defining detail across more than a dozen named roles.
Visual Effects: A small visual effects package for the religious vision sequence and a handful of in-camera enhancements.
Music: Original score by Tim Atack with licensed needle drops including Donovan, Cat Power, and Robert Wyatt.
Marketing and Distribution: Warner Bros. theatrical campaign positioned the film as a high-concept Ricky Gervais comedy for the fall 2009 window.
How Does The Invention of Lying's Budget Compare to Similar Films?
Comparable productions in the same genre and era include:
Ghost Town (2008). Budget $20,000,000 | Worldwide $27,200,000. Ricky Gervais's previous lead vehicle had a comparable budget and a similar tepid theatrical result.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006). Budget $30,000,000 | Worldwide $54,000,000. Another high-concept comedy that struggled to find its theatrical audience.
(500) Days of Summer (2009). Budget $7,500,000 | Worldwide $60,700,000. A 2009 indie-leaning romantic comedy that vastly outperformed Invention of Lying at a fraction of the budget.
Burn After Reading (2008). Budget $37,000,000 | Worldwide $163,700,000. A larger-budget adult comedy that achieved meaningful theatrical traction.
The Invention of Lying Box Office Performance
The Invention of Lying opened on October 2, 2009 in 1,707 North American theaters and earned approximately $7,000,000 in its first weekend, finishing fourth behind Zombieland, Toy Story / Toy Story 2 in 3D, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Production Budget: $18,500,000
Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $25,000,000
Total Estimated Investment: approximately $43,500,000
Worldwide Gross: $32,400,000
Net Return: approximately negative $11,100,000
ROI: approximately negative 26%
For every $1 invested, Warner Bros. and the producing partners recouped roughly $0.74 in theatrical rentals before home entertainment and television licensing.
The film grossed $18,400,000 domestically and $14,000,000 internationally, dropping out of the top ten in its third weekend. The film recouped much of its deficit through DVD, Blu-ray, premium cable licensing, and ongoing streaming availability, though it remains a modest underperformer for its principal financiers.
The Invention of Lying Production History
Ricky Gervais conceived and co-wrote the script with Matthew Robinson, then made his feature directorial debut alongside Robinson. The pair shopped the script before Lynda Obst Productions and Media Rights Capital came aboard as principal financiers, with Warner Bros. taking domestic distribution and Focus Features handling international.
Principal photography took place in the summer of 2008 in eastern Massachusetts, using Lowell as the primary location with additional days in Marblehead, Boston, and Cambridge. The state's film tax credit made the New England shoot financially viable for an $18,500,000 picture.
Gervais recruited an ensemble of friends and comedy collaborators including Louis C.K., Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Jeffrey Tambor, and Christopher Guest, with cameo appearances from Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Bateman, and John Hodgman during a brief Hollywood-set sequence.
The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival in September before its October 2 wide release. Reviews and audience reception were polarized over the film's religious satire half, which Gervais defended as integral to the high concept.
Awards and Recognition
The film received no major industry awards. It picked up a British Comedy Award nomination for Gervais and was named one of the top ten unreleased films of 2009 by select Toronto critics before its debut, though it was shut out of the year-end guild and critics circles.
Critical Reception
Rotten Tomatoes records a 56% critics score on 218 reviews with a 49% audience score. Metacritic logged a 58 weighted score. A.O. Scott in The New York Times praised the premise and noted the film's ambitions outpaced its execution, while Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars and called it intellectually adventurous. Several critics including Manohla Dargis and David Edelstein objected to the religious satire as either too pointed or too undercooked, contributing to the divided reception.
Filmmakers
The Invention of Lying (2009)
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