Red Notice has cost Netflix $200 million, with its ridiculously high budget making it their most expensive movie ever; here's why they spent so much money. The action-comedy movie is written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and stars Dwayne Johnson as FBI agent John Hartley, who is framed by international criminal The Bishop, played by Gal Gadot. Hartley is forced to team up with Ryan Reynolds' art thief, Nolan Booth, in order to bring her down. This is Thurber and Johnson's third movie together after Central Intelligence and Skyscraper, but their first time working with Netflix.
It has long been fashionable in Hollywood to boast about the budget of movies, the rationale being that the higher the budget, the bigger the action and spectacle will be. While that can be the case for filmmakers such as James Cameron or Christopher Nolan, often movie budgets can spin out of control for other reasons, and the resulting price tag is not necessarily represented on screen. Netflix has been steadily increasing the budgets of its original movies, with $90 million spent on 2017's Bright, $155 million for Triple Frontier (2019), and $159 million for 2019's The Irishman (due to its CGI de-aging). Red Notice now holds the title of Netflix's most expensive movie, and there are a number of reasons for this.
A large portion of Red Notice's budget went to securing its A-list cast. Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Renolds, and Gal Gadot were all paid $20 million each to star, with Netflix also paying Thurber $10 million to write and direct. $70 million is a lot of money to spend on four people before a second of footage is filmed, even with big names. It's considered a worthwhile investment, however. By securing top talent like Johnson, Renolds, and Gadot, Netflix creates interest and attracts subscribers for what could otherwise be a run-of-the-mill action-comedy. While reviews for Red Notice have been less than kind, it certainly boasts a variety of expensive action scenes that would have cost a lot to create. Ryan Renolds also said that he wasted "millions of Netflix’s dollars on laughing and just goofing around on set," and while that was just a joke, real-life delays arguably added up. Red Notice was affected by COVID-19, which is costly, with filming being halted completely mid-production due to the pandemic. Setbacks and delays all cost money and add to the movie’s overall budget.
Red Notice was originally assigned a budget of $160 million, but the delays upped the total cost to $200 million. While it's Netflix's most expensive movie ever, it's still small change to the streaming giant, which has spent over $17 billion cash on content in 2021 alone to keep ahead of rival streaming services such as Amazon and Disney+, with an estimated amortized $5.21 billion spent on original content alone (via Variety). TV movies (or straight-to-streaming movies as they’re now known) were once considered to be lower quality compared to theatrical releases. However, Netflix has changed this perception completely by attracting top stars and directors through a combination of large fees and creative freedom. Netflix has had great success with its prestige output (The Irishman, Roma, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to name a few). But while their blockbuster and franchise attempts have been successful from a viewing/subscriber standpoint, Netflix has yet to consistently achieve the same quality as Hollywood's top tentpole blockbusters.
With the release of Red Notice, Netflix is continuing its ambitious plans for its growing library of original movies and assigning extravagant budgets to match. The Russo brothers' upcoming spy thriller The Gray Man, for example, is reported to rival Red Notice's $200 million budget. While Netflix still has a way to go before they threaten the most expensive movie ever made, based on their current trajectory and ridiculously deep pockets, it's likely only a matter of time.
