Julia Roberts Cashed In Big on a Box Office Flop
Julia Roberts’ massive paycheck for Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt has been revealed — and it dwarfs the film’s meager $6 million box office amid the ongoing slump for adult upscale movies.
Here is one of those numbers that makes your eyebrows jump: Julia Roberts reportedly pocketed $20 million for After the Hunt, and the movie only scraped up about $6 million at the box office. That is not a typo. Deadline dropped the figure in a wider look at the recent struggles of adult-focused, prestige-y releases, and this one is a standout example of the problem.
The paycheck vs. the performance
After the Hunt, a college-set psychological thriller from director Luca Guadagnino, landed with a thud. The reported production budget was in the $70–80 million range, and the theatrical take was roughly $6 million. Critics and audiences were cool on it, too: since premiering at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, the movie has settled at 38% on Rotten Tomatoes from 193 reviews.
What Roberts signed on to do
Roberts plays Alma Imhoff, a well-liked Yale professor who gets pulled into a scandal involving her standout student and a close colleague. Deadline says she was paid $20 million for the role. To put it plainly: the film made less at the box office than its star’s check.
"The film is a gripping psychological drama about a college professor who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student levels an accusation against one of her colleagues, and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light."
Who made it and who’s in it
Guadagnino directed from a script by Nora Garrett. The cast is stacked, and the producing lineup is loaded with heavy hitters, which makes the outcome even more surprising.
- Cast: Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloe Sevigny, Lio Mehiel, Thaddea Graham, Ariyan Kassam, Will Price, Christine Dye, Burgess Byrd
- Director: Luca Guadagnino
- Writer: Nora Garrett
- Producers: Luca Guadagnino, Brian Grazer, Jeb Brody, Allan Mandelbaum
- Executive producers: Nora Garrett, Karen Lunder, Justin Wilkes, Alice Dawson
What’s next for Roberts
She’s already moving on to her next thriller, Panic Carefully, co-starring Elizabeth Olsen and Eddie Redmayne. No release date chatter here yet, but expect that one to draw interest if only because everyone will be watching to see how the market treats another star-led, adult-skewing drama after this very expensive stumble.