Vampires Suck Budget

What Is the Budget of Vampires Suck (2010)?

Vampires Suck (2010), directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer and distributed by 20th Century Fox through its Regency Enterprises co-financing arrangement, was produced on a reported budget of $20,000,000. The film parodied the Twilight Saga, with newcomer Jenn Proske as Becca Crane (the Bella Swan analog), Matt Lanter as the sparkling vampire Edward Sullen, and Chris Riggi as the werewolf Jacob White, alongside Diedrich Bader and Ken Jeong in supporting roles.

The investment reflected the established Friedberg-Seltzer playbook: keep budgets disciplined, target an in-the-moment pop-culture phenomenon, and rely on saturation-style marketing to convert opening weekend awareness into theatrical revenue before negative reviews could spread. Fox, which had distributed several previous Friedberg-Seltzer parodies through its Regency partnership including Date Movie (2006), Epic Movie (2007), and Disaster Movie (2008), structured the production for a quick turnaround targeting the August 2010 release window.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

Vampires Suck's reported $20,000,000 budget was distributed across several core production areas:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Co-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer commanded the writer-director-producer rates they had established across their previous parody slate. The cast was assembled from working journeyman performers and rising newcomers rather than name talent, a deliberate cost-control strategy that allowed the production to spend on parody set pieces rather than star compensation.
• Practical Production Design: The film required period and contemporary set construction for the parody's Forks-substitute high school, vampire mansion, and the climactic Lady Gaga concert sequence, with multiple Twilight-mirror builds at Los Angeles area soundstages and exterior shooting on Louisiana practical locations.
• Costume and Prosthetics: Costume designer Frank Helmer designed parody costumes mocking the Twilight family's tableau, Avatar's Na'vi look, Lady Gaga's meat-dress era, and the broader pop-culture references the screenplay accumulated. Prosthetics and makeup effects, including the sparkle-skin gag, added incremental cost.
• Visual Effects: Although Vampires Suck was lighter on digital effects than its straight-genre targets, the film required CGI for the wolf transformation gags, the sparkle-vampire daylight sequences, and the Lady Gaga concert finale. Vendor work was concentrated at smaller Los Angeles VFX houses, with shot counts intentionally restrained.
• Music and Pop Culture Licensing: Composer Christopher Lennertz scored the film, and the production licensed pop tracks for parody sequences including Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, and Ke$ha references current to summer 2010. The licensing budget represented a meaningful line item given the parody depended on instantly recognizable musical cues.
• Marketing-Adjacent Production Costs: Fox commissioned multiple trailer-ready set pieces and on-set ENG content for the August 18, 2010 release, with cast availability for radio and TV promo tied to a tight three-week period leading up to the opening.

How Does Vampires Suck's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At a reported $20,000,000, Vampires Suck sat comfortably inside the Friedberg-Seltzer parody-comedy bracket. The comparison set frames its commercial outcome:

• Date Movie (2006): Budget $20,000,000 | Worldwide $84,895,470. The Friedberg-Seltzer team's breakout parody cost the same and earned approximately 6% more, providing the template for the duo's subsequent franchise.
• Epic Movie (2007): Budget $20,000,000 | Worldwide $86,824,656. The fantasy-adventure parody cost the same and earned 8% more, again validating the $20,000,000 ceiling for the format.
• Disaster Movie (2008): Budget $25,000,000 | Worldwide $34,777,134. The previous Friedberg-Seltzer entry cost 25% more and grossed less than half of Vampires Suck, demonstrating the diminishing returns the format had hit by 2008 and the corrective course Fox took with the smaller Vampires Suck budget.
• Scary Movie 4 (2006): Budget $40,000,000 | Worldwide $178,262,620. The Weinstein-distributed parody from David Zucker cost twice as much and earned more than twice the worldwide total, illustrating how a different parody franchise with a stronger brand outperformed Friedberg-Seltzer on both ends.
• Twilight (2008): Budget $37,000,000 | Worldwide $407,234,455. The film Vampires Suck was parodying cost 85% more and earned more than five times the worldwide gross, the comparison Fox could not avoid when projecting the parody's ceiling.

Vampires Suck Box Office Performance

Vampires Suck opened on August 18, 2010, finishing second at the domestic box office with $12,209,290 over its first three days (Wednesday opening), trailing The Expendables in its second weekend. The Wednesday open generated $4,036,021 on day one and $7,400,000 across the first five days from Wednesday to Sunday, helping the film clear its production budget within its opening weekend window.

Against a reported production budget of $20,000,000, the film needed approximately $50,000,000 in worldwide gross to reach profitability when accounting for marketing and distribution costs. Here is the financial breakdown:

• Production Budget: $20,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $25,000,000 to $30,000,000
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $45,000,000 to $50,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: $80,247,975
• Net Return: approximately $30,247,975 gross profit (against total estimated investment, before theatre/distributor share)
• ROI: approximately positive 60% on a gross-receipts basis

Vampires Suck returned approximately $1.60 in worldwide theatrical revenue for every $1 invested when measured against total estimated production and marketing spend, a healthy commercial outcome that vindicated Fox's decision to reduce the production budget from $25,000,000 (Disaster Movie) back to $20,000,000. The domestic share of the gross was $36,743,066 against an international share of $43,504,909, a 46/54 split heavily indebted to European and Latin American markets where Twilight parody material translated easily.

The commercial result extended the Friedberg-Seltzer Fox parody franchise by another release, with The Starving Games (2013) following as the duo's next collaboration after a three-year gap during which the parody-comedy category broadly declined as the source phenomena (Twilight, found-footage horror, superhero saturation) consolidated around fewer breakout titles.

Vampires Suck Production History

Development on a Twilight parody began at Regency Enterprises in early 2010, with Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer attached to write, direct, and produce on the strength of their previous Fox-distributed slate. The screenplay was completed in March 2010 with a deliberately tight turnaround to capitalize on Eclipse, the third Twilight film, which had opened in June 2010 and grossed $698,491,347 worldwide.

Principal photography began in April 2010 in Louisiana, taking advantage of the state's 30% production tax credit which was a primary cost-control mechanism. The unit shot in the New Orleans area, with the production using Louisiana soundstages for the parody high school and vampire mansion interiors, and surrounding parishes for the parody-Forks exteriors. Shooting wrapped in May 2010 after a compressed roughly six-week schedule.

Casting Jenn Proske as Becca was the production's defining commercial choice. Proske had appeared in a handful of television guest spots and the indie My Soul to Take, and her commitment to a deadpan Kristen Stewart impression became the film's most discussed creative element, drawing praise even from negative reviewers. Matt Lanter (90210) and Chris Riggi (Gossip Girl) anchored the male romantic leads, with Ken Jeong (The Hangover) and Diedrich Bader providing comic support.

Post-production ran through summer 2010 with a compressed turnaround targeting the August 18 release. The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for crude sexual content, comic violence, language, and drug references, a deliberate positioning that allowed Fox to capture the Twilight target demographic of teenage and young-adult moviegoers.

Awards and Recognition

Vampires Suck received no major industry awards recognition. The film was not nominated at the Academy Awards, the Saturn Awards, or any major critics' organizations.

At the 31st Razzie Awards in February 2011, Vampires Suck won the Razzie for Worst Screenplay (Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer) and was nominated for Worst Picture (which lost to The Last Airbender), Worst Director (Friedberg and Seltzer, which lost to M. Night Shyamalan for The Last Airbender), and Worst Screen Couple. The Razzie attention reflected the broader critical consensus that the production had reached an aesthetic and creative nadir for the parody-comedy format.

Critical Reception

Vampires Suck received overwhelmingly negative reviews. The film holds a 4% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 79 critic reviews, with the consensus calling it lazy and unfunny. On Metacritic, the film scored 18 out of 100, indicating overwhelming dislike. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a C, well below the B+ to A- range typical for studio comedies.

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that the film "isn't a parody so much as a recitation of recent movies and TV shows," and Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called it "less a comedy than a list of things you saw earlier this summer." Variety's John Anderson noted that "the only thing on screen with any timing is Jenn Proske's pitch-perfect Bella Swan impression."

Genre-press reaction was uniformly hostile, with Bloody Disgusting, FearNet, and Dread Central all panning the film. The pattern of critical disdain combined with healthy commercial returns has remained consistent across the Friedberg-Seltzer filmography, with the duo continuing to release low-budget parody features through smaller distributors after their Fox arrangement concluded.