Spring Breakers

A part of the main cast at the film's premiere in Paris in February 2013: Rachel Korine, Ashley Benson, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens.

According to Harmony Korine, he wrote the film partially to make up for his own spring breaks, as he had been fully devoted to skateboarding, and therefore missed out on what he saw as opportunities for hedonistic pursuits.[19] Korine has referred to the film as a "beach noir".[18]

The original lineup of lead actresses was announced as Emma Roberts, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens.[20] Director Korine had purposely collected a group of well-known young actresses with a similar reputation to Roberts in Hollywood.[21] Ashley Benson was ultimately cast instead after Roberts dropped out due to her being uncomfortable with the film’s explicit sexuality.[22]

The film was shot in March and April 2012 in and around St. Petersburg, Florida. The exterior shots and some interior shots of the college where Gomez and Benson attend were filmed at New College of Florida, while the dormitory and classroom shots were filmed at Ringling College of Art and Design.[19][23] Korine announced in 2013 he planned to "remix" the film's unused footage and alternate takes into an entirely new cut.[24]

The film score to Spring Breakers was composed by Cliff Martinez and Skrillex, marking the first scoring assignment for the latter.[25][26] Skrillex was contacted after Korine sent music supervisor Randall Poster links to the electronica artist's music on YouTube. "I'm accustomed to being the oldest person at a gig," said Poster, "but when I went to see Skrillex at Roseland this year, it was dramatic. There were a lot of kids that looked like they were 15 years old. But I loved it. I truly loved it."[27] Magneto Dayo released the song "Spring Breakers", featuring Sage Odessa, which references the film and real life spring break experiences.[28]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	68/100[30]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[31]
Consequence of Sound	C-[32]
Now	NNNN[33]
Pitchfork Media	7.6/10[34]
RedEye	[35]
Rolling Stone	[36]
Tampa Bay Times	A[37]

Spring Breakers (Music From the Motion Picture) is a soundtrack album for the film of the same name. It was released on March 19, 2013 by Big Beat Records and Warner Music.[29][38]

Spring Breakers was released digitally on June 25, 2013,[43][44] and on DVD and Blu-ray on July 9, 2013.[45]

Spring Breakers grossed $14,124,284 in North America and $17,600,000 in other countries for a worldwide total of $31,724,284.[4] In North America, the film opened to #6 in its first weekend with $4,858,944, behind The Croods, Admission, The Call, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Olympus Has Fallen.[46]

The performance of James Franco earned praise from critics, and a campaign was later started by A24 in attempts to garner him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 68% based on 200 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Spring Breakers blends stinging social commentary with bikini cheesecake and a bravura James Franco performance."[47] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating from film critics, it received a rating score of 63 out of 100 based on 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[48] Xan Brooks of The Guardian said the film is Korine's "most fully realised, purely satisfying feature film since Gummo."[49] Emma Seligman of The Huffington Post described the film as "Scarface meets Britney Spears."[50] Oliver Lyttlelton of IndieWire gave the film a B, stating that the film would be a future cult favorite for "midnight moviegoers".[13]

Guy Lodge of Variety gave it a negative review saying, "this attractively fizzy pic may be a shock to the system for fans of teen queens Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, but remains pretty toothless titillation by its writer-helmer's standards."[51] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter noted that James Franco gives one of his more bizarre performances in his unpredictable career, saying "he's a cross between Bo Derek in 10 and Richard Kiel in Moonraker."[52] Andrew Schenker of Slant Magazine gave the film 3 out of 4 stars.[53] Jamie Dunn of The Skinny gave it 4 out of 5 stars, saying: "If Michael Mann was to take a lot of hallucinogenics and shoot a Girls Gone Wild video, it might look something like this."[54] Richard Roeper of Rogerebert.com gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, praising the character of Alien and the film's sense of humor.[55]

A24 began a campaign in September 2013 in support of a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Franco's performance. This was preceded by the Hollywood.com website that produced a "For your consideration" poster in support of a nomination for Franco in March 2013.[56] On December 2, 2013, A24 published a YouTube video titled "James Franco - Consider this Sh*t" and also released print advertisements following the "Consider this Sh*t [sic]" theme.[57] Originally, Internet chatter considered the campaign a joke, but A24 has since made it clear that the campaign was indeed serious.[58]

Spring Breakers has since appeared on various retrospective "best of" lists, including one honoring the best films of the 21st century. In 2016, British film magazine Little White Lies placed the film at number 40 on their list of the 50 best films of the decade (so far).[59] In August of that same year, BBC Magazine conducted a poll on the 21st century's 100 greatest films so far, with Spring Breakers ranking at number 74.[60] In France, the magazine Les Cahiers du cinéma featured Spring Breakers on their March 2013's cover,[61] and placed it second on their December 2013 Top Ten chart.[62]

Spring Breakers was listed on many critics' top ten lists for 2013.[63]

On February 15, 2012, Korine contacted rapper Riff Raff about appearing in an upcoming film of Korine's which would later turn out to be Spring Breakers.[66] Once the trailer was released there was speculation that the character Alien was based on Riff Raff.[67] According to Franco, Alien is based on the underground rap artist Dangeruss, who has a cameo in the film. "Of course Harmony and I looked at some of Riff Raff's videos as inspiration, but he was one of a number of people we looked at. I would say the biggest influence on the role was this local, Florida rapper named Dangeruss. He's fairly unknown, but he was down there in the place, living the life, and he became the biggest model for me, and he's in the movie."[68] After much back-and-forth between both camps about the issue, Riff Raff announced in July 2013 that he was suing the creators of Spring Breakers for $10 million for "sampling" his life without his permission or a proper producer credit.[69] However, a September, 2013 search by LA Weekly for court documents resulted in no findings.[70]

Spring Breakers has generated debate and controversy among critics, with some regarding the film as sexist due to its objectification of women, while others viewed the film as a feminist or female-empowerment film. In regard to the former perspective, The Guardian suggests that the film "reinforces rape culture" and "turns young women into sex objects,"[71] while other reviewers state that it "pushes booze-and-bikini hedonism to the extreme,"[72] as the "camera glides up, down, and around these women's bodies like a giant tongue".[73] According to Rolling Stone, the film presents "a kind of girl-power camaraderie that could almost be called feminist," a result of the director's intent to "do the most radical work, but put it out in the most commercial way (...) to infiltrate the mainstream".[74] In his review of the film, Richard Roeper wrote "Korine's camera is nearly an intrusive weapon as he lingers over the soft, limber bodies of Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, and his wife, Rachel Korine.... I think that's sort of the point. When a pre-med student on spring break loses her top, drinks to the point of passing out, and grabs a willing lugnut by the ears for six hours of anonymous fun, is she setting the woman's movement back 40 years, or taking charge of her life like any man would do at that age?"[55]

Franco won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor (tied with Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club), National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor, and San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor, while the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association nominated him for its Best Supporting Actor award.[75]