What is the budget of Where the Crawdads Sing?

"Where the Crawdads Sing," a drama released in 2022, was directed by Olivia Newman and stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith. The production budget was $24,000,000, placing it in the mid-budget range for drama productions of its era.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

While specific budget breakdowns are not publicly available, typical cost drivers for a drama production like this include:

Above-the-Line Talent: Drama films live or die on the strength of their performances.
Location Filming & Period Production Design: Authentic locations , whether contemporary or historical , require scouting, permits, travel, lodging, and often significant dressing to match the story's time period.
Post-Production, Color Grading & Score: The editorial process for dramas is typically longer than genre films, with careful attention to pacing and tone.
Development: Media outlets reported in March 2020 that Lucy Alibar had been hired to adapt the film adaptation of Delia Owens' best-selling novel Where the Crawdads Sing for Hello Sunshine and the newly formed 3000 Pictures label of Sony Pictures.

What were the major cost factors in Where the Crawdads Sing?

Several factors contributed to the overall production costs of "Where the Crawdads Sing."

Above-the-Line Talent: Above-the-Line Talent is one of the primary cost drivers in drama productions of this scale.
Location Filming: Location Filming & Period Production Design is one of the primary cost drivers in drama productions of this scale.
Post-Production: Post-Production, Color Grading & Score is one of the primary cost drivers in drama productions of this scale.

How Does Where the Crawdads Sing's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $24,000,000, Where the Crawdads Sing sits in the mid-budget range. Here is how it compares to productions with a similar budget:

Double Take (2001): Budget $24,000,000, Worldwide Gross $31,600,000
Faster (2010): Budget $24,000,000, Worldwide Gross $23,081,726
Fences (2016): Budget $24,000,000, Worldwide Gross $64,400,000
Foxcatcher (2014): Budget $24,000,000, Worldwide Gross $12,096,300
Howl's Moving Castle (2004): Budget $24,000,000, Worldwide Gross $236,049,757

The median budget for wide-release drama films in the 2020s ranges from $30 to 80M for mid-budget to $150M+ for tentpoles.

Where the Crawdads Sing Box Office Performance

"Where the Crawdads Sing" earned $90,230,760 domestically and $144,353,965 worldwide at the box office. Against a production budget of $24,000,000, the film performed strongly at the box office.

A film typically needs to earn approximately twice its production budget to cover marketing and distribution costs. For "Where the Crawdads Sing," that break-even threshold was roughly $48,000,000. With worldwide earnings of $144,353,965, the film cleared that threshold comfortably.

Production Budget: $24,000,000
Worldwide Gross: $144,353,965
Net Return: $120,353,965
ROI: approximately 501.5%

At 501.5%, "Where the Crawdads Sing" earned roughly $6.01 for every $1 invested in production.

Where the Crawdads Sing Production History

Media outlets reported in March 2020 that Lucy Alibar had been hired to adapt the film adaptation of Delia Owens' best-selling novel Where the Crawdads Sing for Hello Sunshine and the newly formed 3000 Pictures label of Sony Pictures. In July, Olivia Newman was hired to direct. In January 2021, it was announced that Taylor John Smith and Harris Dickinson would join Daisy Edgar-Jones in the cast.

Principal photography took place from March 30 to June 28, 2021, in New Orleans and Houma, Louisiana. [Filming] Principal photography took place from March 30 to June 28, 2021, in New Orleans and Houma, Louisiana.

Where the Crawdads Sing (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) was scored by Canadian composer Mychael Danna. The soundtrack contains 22 tracks. All of the tracks were composed by Danna except the original song "Carolina" (2022).

Awards and Recognition

3 wins & 13 nominations total

Critical Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 35% of 220 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Daisy Edgar-Jones gives it her all, but Where the Crawdads Sing is ultimately unable to distill its source material into a tonally coherent drama." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 43 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Various critics highlighted Edgar-Jones's performance as the best aspect of the film.