Under Paris Budget

What Is the Budget of Under Paris (2024)?

Under Paris (Sous la Seine) (2024), directed by Xavier Gens and acquired worldwide by Netflix, was produced on a budget that has not been formally disclosed by the streamer or the French production companies that originated the project. Industry coverage from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and the French trade outlet Ecran Total places the production in the upper tier of French-language genre cinema, with multiple sources estimating the figure between $20,000,000 and $30,000,000 once visual effects, water unit photography on the Seine, and the climactic catacomb sequence are factored in. The film was developed and produced by Edouard Duprey and Vincent Roget through The Walt Disney Company France's former arm Pathé alongside Mandarin Compagnie before Netflix took the rights as a co-production and global SVOD partner.

Compared with English-language Netflix shark and creature features such as 47 Meters Down: Uncaged ($12,000,000) and The Meg ($178,000,000), Under Paris sits in a middle band that reflects its hybrid identity: a French-language disaster thriller engineered with the visual scale of a Hollywood summer release. The water-based action, the use of a CG mako shark navigating a flooded Paris, and the practical staging of the World Triathlon Championships finale account for the bulk of the spend.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

Under Paris's estimated budget was distributed across several core production areas:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Director Xavier Gens (Frontier(s), Hitman, The Crucifixion) commanded a feature-director rate appropriate to a Netflix-backed French tentpole, and lead Bérénice Bejo, coming off Oscar-nominated work on The Artist, headlined the cast alongside Nassim Lyes, Léa Léviant, and Anne Marivin. The ensemble pulled together name recognition across French art-house and genre audiences.
• Visual Effects and Creature Animation: The CG shark, an oversized mako that adapts to fresh water and reproduces parthenogenetically, was created by French VFX houses including Mac Guff and BUF. Multiple shark and pup variations, underwater environment work for the Seine and the catacombs, and integration of practical water tank photography with digital extensions consumed the largest single line item.
• Seine and Paris Location Shoot: Sequences were filmed along the Seine, around the Île de la Cité, and in studio recreations of the catacombs. Permits to shoot on and around the river during the lead-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics drove logistics costs, with extensive coordination required with the Préfecture de Police and the City of Paris.
• Water Unit Photography: An underwater unit handled controlled-tank dives, stunt work, and bluescreen plates that integrated with the CG shark. Water unit days are among the most expensive in any production schedule, with specialized rigging, safety divers, and longer reset times between takes.
• Stunts and Practical Effects: Set pieces including the triathlon attack, the catacomb flood, and several confined-space pursuits required choreographed stunt work, controlled water releases, and practical blood and bite gags coordinated with the VFX department.
• Score and Sound Design: Composer Frédéric Jaffré scored the film with a hybrid orchestral and electronic palette. The soundscape leaned on the eerie low-frequency rumble of the shark approaching through opaque water, requiring extended sound mix sessions and bespoke Foley.
• Marketing and Localization: Netflix handled global marketing and dubbing into more than 30 languages, costs absorbed by the platform rather than the production line item but central to the film's viral June 2024 launch.

How Does Under Paris's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At an estimated $20,000,000 to $30,000,000, Under Paris sits in the mid-range of contemporary shark and creature features. The comparison set illustrates how its commercial outcome diverged from its budgetary peers:

• The Meg (2018): Budget $178,000,000 | Worldwide $530,243,742. Warner Bros. and Gravity Pictures spent roughly seven times Under Paris on the Jason Statham-led shark blockbuster, and recouped through a global theatrical release with heavy China presence.
• 47 Meters Down (2017): Budget $5,500,000 | Worldwide $62,232,946. The Mandy Moore cage thriller cost a fraction of Under Paris and earned more than ten times its budget at the box office, demonstrating the upside of a contained-budget shark film with a theatrical window.
• Bird Box (2018): Budget $19,800,000 | Worldwide N/A (Netflix exclusive). The Sandra Bullock streaming thriller offers the closest comparison in production scale and platform strategy, becoming Netflix's biggest film launch of its time with 45 million accounts watching in the first week.
• Jaws 2 (1978): Budget $30,000,000 | Worldwide $208,900,376. Universal's direct sequel matched Under Paris on budget in inflation-unadjusted dollars while charting a different commercial path: a theatrical release that earned roughly seven times its spend.
• Extraction (2020): Budget $65,000,000 | Worldwide N/A (Netflix). The Chris Hemsworth Netflix action film cost more than twice Under Paris and reached 99 million households in its first 28 days, providing a benchmark for what a Netflix global launch can deliver when paired with a recognizable lead.

Under Paris Box Office Performance

Under Paris launched globally on Netflix on June 5, 2024, with a limited French theatrical window through Pathé that grossed approximately $750,000 across its release. Netflix does not disclose absolute revenue figures for original films, so the financial analysis below is structured around the platform's viewership metrics and the estimated production investment rather than traditional theatrical box office.

Against an estimated production budget of $25,000,000 (midpoint of the reported range), the film required strong global viewership to justify the platform investment and franchise potential. Here is the financial breakdown:

• Production Budget: estimated $20,000,000 to $30,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): absorbed by Netflix global marketing budget
• Total Estimated Investment: estimated $20,000,000 to $30,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: limited theatrical $750,000 plus 38.3 million Netflix views in the first 28 days
• Net Return: profitable for Netflix per platform metrics, exact figure not disclosed
• ROI: estimated positive based on Netflix viewership and platform engagement data

Under Paris ranked as the most-watched non-English Netflix film of 2024, reaching number one in 90 countries within its first weekend and accumulating 95.3 million views in its first 91 days on the platform. The view metric, defined by Netflix as total hours watched divided by total runtime, translated into one of the strongest debut performances ever for a French-language original.

The platform announced a sequel in development within weeks of release, and Xavier Gens confirmed in interviews with Variety and Allocine that he and co-writers Yannick Dahan, Maud Heywang, and Yael Langmann had begun work on a follow-up film that would expand the parthenogenetic mako threat to additional European waterways.

Under Paris Production History

Development began in 2019 when producers Edouard Duprey and Vincent Roget approached Xavier Gens with a treatment by Sébastien Auscher that imagined a great white shark navigating the Seine during a major Parisian event. Gens, an avid scuba diver and longtime fan of Jaws and The Abyss, restructured the premise around a mako shark and brought in Yannick Dahan, Maud Heywang, and Yael Langmann to shape the screenplay. The project was developed at Mandarin Compagnie and pitched to multiple French distributors before Netflix attached as global SVOD partner in 2022.

Principal photography ran from April through July 2023 across France, with the Paris unit covering Seine river photography around the Île de la Cité, Pont Marie, and the Sully-Morland district during a window before the 2024 Olympics infrastructure work intensified. A separate water unit shot tank sequences at the Studio Sets in Bry-sur-Marne and at a controlled-tank facility outside Paris, with additional principal photography on catacomb interiors built as a soundstage construction.

The film leaned on the French Tax Rebate for International Production (TRIP) and the CNC's domestic production support, with Mac Guff and BUF handling the bulk of the shark and underwater environment work over a post-production schedule that ran from August 2023 through April 2024. Composer Frédéric Jaffré delivered the score in Q1 2024, with the final mix and Dolby Atmos pass completed roughly six weeks before the Netflix launch.

Casting Bérénice Bejo as Sophia, the marine biologist tracking the shark, anchored the film in dramatic credibility, while Nassim Lyes brought visibility from the French action and thriller circuit. Director Xavier Gens has cited Steven Spielberg's Jaws, James Cameron's The Abyss, and Bong Joon-ho's The Host as the principal visual and tonal references that guided the production.

Awards and Recognition

Under Paris received nominations and recognition from several festival and industry bodies focused on genre cinema. The film won the Audience Award at the 2024 Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF), where it premiered to a packed crowd in July 2024 following its Netflix launch. It was also nominated for the Méliès d'Argent for Best European Fantastic Feature at the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation.

At the 2025 César Awards, France's top film honors, Under Paris was nominated in technical categories including Best Visual Effects (for the work of Mac Guff and BUF) and Best Sound. While the film did not win in those categories, the nominations represented a notable recognition of a genre Netflix original within a ceremony that historically favors auteur drama. The film also received a Saturn Awards nomination from the U.S. Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for Best International Film.

Critical Reception

Under Paris received broadly positive reviews from critics and audiences, balancing genre expectations with a politically pointed climate-disaster subtext. The film holds a 71% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 51 critic reviews, with a critical consensus that praised its inventive set pieces and willingness to commit to a bleak finale. On Metacritic, the film scored 56 out of 100, indicating mixed-to-positive reviews. Netflix viewer ratings were notably enthusiastic, with the film generating significant social media discussion around its catacomb finale and the ambiguous ending.

Critics praised the technical command of Xavier Gens, the photography by Nicolas Massart, and the willingness to follow the disaster premise to a logical and uncompromising conclusion. The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney called it "a slick, surprisingly substantial creature feature that takes its environmental anxieties seriously," and Variety's Guy Lodge wrote that the film "delivers the goods on shark spectacle while leaving a sting in its tail." French critics at Cahiers du Cinéma and Première noted the political resonance of staging the disaster against the backdrop of the upcoming Paris Olympics, reading the film as a critique of municipal hubris.

Audience reactions on Netflix and Letterboxd were largely positive, with viewers praising the practical stakes, the unflinching ending, and the production design of the flooded catacombs. The film's parthenogenetic-reproduction plot device, drawn from real-world shark biology research, became a topic of discussion in science press including Smithsonian Magazine and Live Science, extending the film's footprint into non-genre coverage.