How It Ends Budget

What is the budget of How It Ends?

"How It Ends," a science fiction released in 2018, was directed by David M. Rosenthal and stars Theo James, Forest Whitaker. The production budget was $20,000,000, placing it in the mid-budget range for science fiction productions of its era.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

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

• Visual Effects & CGI Pipeline: Sci-fi films are among the most VFX-intensive productions in Hollywood.
• Production Design & World-Building: Creating a believable sci-fi world required significant investment in set construction, prop fabrication, and conceptual design , from physical environments through LED volume stages and virtual production technology.
• Technology & Camera Systems: Cutting-edge camera rigs, motion capture stages, LED volume stages (virtual production), and proprietary rendering technology often push the technical budget far beyond conventional filming costs.

What were the major cost factors in How It Ends?

Several factors contributed to the overall production costs of "How It Ends."

• Visual Effects: Visual Effects & CGI Pipeline is one of the primary cost drivers in science fiction productions of this scale.
• Production Design: Production Design & World-Building is one of the primary cost drivers in science fiction productions of this scale.
• Technology: Technology & Camera Systems is one of the primary cost drivers in science fiction productions of this scale.

How Does How It Ends's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $20,000,000, How It Ends sits in the mid-budget range. Here is how it compares to productions with a similar budget:

• 12 Years a Slave (2013): Budget $20,000,000, Worldwide Gross $187,000,000
• 21 Grams (2003): Budget $20,000,000, Worldwide Gross $60,427,839
• 3 Ninjas Kick Back (1994): Budget $20,000,000, Worldwide Gross $11,798,854
• A Guy Thing (2003): Budget $20,000,000, Worldwide Gross $17,400,000
• A Most Violent Year (2014): Budget $20,000,000, Worldwide Gross $12,007,070

The median budget for wide-release science fiction films in the 2010s ranges from $30 to 80M for mid-budget to $150M+ for tentpoles.

How It Ends Box Office Performance

How It Ends has no box office. Netflix acquired worldwide rights on January 4, 2017, released a full length trailer on June 22, 2018, and put the film on the service on July 13, 2018 with no theatrical window in any market. There is no domestic gross, no international gross and no opening weekend, and Box Office Mojo and The Numbers carry no theatrical record for the title.

No return on the $20,000,000 can be calculated. Netflix did not publish title level viewing data in 2018, the terms of its acquisition have never been disclosed, and there are no ticket sales to set against the production cost. The budget is the only public financial fact about this film.

That is the standard shape for a Netflix original of this period rather than a failure to report. Bird Box, released the same year at a nearly identical $19,800,000, sits in exactly the same position. What separates them is not money but reception: where Bird Box became a cultural event on the service, How It Ends arrived to a 17% Rotten Tomatoes score and generated no comparable word of mouth.

How It Ends Production History

The film spent seven years in development. Brooks McLaren's screenplay appeared on the 2010 Black List, the annual survey of the most liked unproduced scripts in Hollywood, and on March 19, 2011 Sierra/Affinity announced it was developing the project with Paul Schiff and Tai Duncan producing. It sat there for nearly five years. On December 1, 2015 David M. Rosenthal came aboard to direct, with Sierra Pictures both producing and fully financing.

Netflix acquired worldwide rights on January 4, 2017, which is the moment the film became a streaming title rather than a theatrical one. Casting followed that summer: Theo James, Forest Whitaker and Kat Graham were announced in June 2017, with Mark O'Brien added in September.

Principal photography took place in Winnipeg, Manitoba in August 2017, with cinematographer Peter Flinckenberg. The location list reads like a route map because the film is one: the Arlington Bridge, the pedestrian bridge at Birds Hill Park, the Inkster area, the RBC Convention Centre on York Avenue and the city's airport all stood in for a fracturing United States. A gas station sequence was shot in Steinbach, southeast of Winnipeg, and the production also worked in Brandon. The mountain material was recorded in Kananaskis Country in Alberta.

Shooting a cross country American apocalypse in a Manitoba summer is the production decision that defines the film's economics. A majority of the picture is exterior work, which means the schedule was built around company moves and daylight rather than stage availability, and it is why a $20,000,000 road movie could carry the scale it does.

Awards and Recognition

5 nominations total

Critical Reception

Reviews were poor. How It Ends holds a 17% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 3.00 out of 10, and Rotten Tomatoes has not published a critics consensus for it. On Metacritic it scores 36 out of 100 from 5 critics, which the site classifies as generally unfavorable. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes also sits at 17%.

Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com ended his review with the line "You're better off not even beginning." Josh Martin of Film Inquiry wrote that "Even with a good hook, How It Ends suffers from a lack of vision, which is exactly what you don't need in an effects-heavy disaster movie."

Two things stand out in the numbers. The first is that critics and audiences landed on the same figure, 17% each, where a poorly reviewed streaming genre film usually shows a wide gap between the two. The second is the sample size: 18 counted reviews is small by wide release standards and reflects a title that reached the public through a streaming service rather than a theatrical press cycle.