# Dance Flick
**Dance Flick** is a 2009 American parody comedy film that spoofs popular dance movies, directed by Damien Dante Wayans and produced, co-written, and populated by members of the [Wayans family](https://www.edgepedia.org/wayans-family). [Paramount Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/paramount-pictures) released it in theaters on May 22, 2009, rated PG-13, with a running time of 83 minutes.[1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/dance-flick) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dance_flick)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | May 22, 2009 (wide, theatrical); DVD and Blu-ray September 8, 2009[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dance_flick) • [3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dance-Flick) |
| Director | Damien Dante Wayans, his directorial debut[1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/dance-flick) • [4](https://www.darkhorizons.com/damien-wayans-for-dance-flick/) |
| Writers | Keenen Ivory, Shawn, Marlon, Craig, and Damien Dante Wayans, with Rick Alvarez[1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/dance-flick) |
| Rating / runtime | PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, and language; 83 minutes[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dance_flick) |
| Budget / box office | $25,000,000 budget; $10,643,536 domestic opening; $31,439,140 worldwide gross[5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1153706/) |
| Critical reception | 18% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (94 reviews); 40/100 on Metacritic (17 reviews)[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dance_flick) • [6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dance-flick/critic-reviews/) |
| Main targets | Save the Last Dance, Hairspray, High School Musical, You Got Served, Stomp the Yard, Twilight, Black Snake Moan[7](https://exclaim.ca/film/article/dance_flick-directed_by_damien_dante_wayans) • [8](https://www.blackfilm.com/20090521/features/marlonwayans.shtml) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and targets
The story follows the general plot outline of *Save the Last Dance* (2001). Megan White (Shoshana Bush) is a suburban ballet student whose dreams are disrupted when she transfers to an inner-city high school, where she meets Thomas Uncles ([Damon Wayans Jr.](https://www.edgepedia.org/damon-wayans-jr)), a hip-hop dancer from the wrong side of the tracks. The two join forces to win what the marketing called "the mother of all dance-offs," facing competition from Nora (Christina Murphy), the school's queen of the dance floor.[1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/dance-flick) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dance_flick)
Around this frame the film parodies a range of dance and musical films. [Marlon Wayans](https://www.edgepedia.org/marlon-wayans) listed the targets as running from *Save the Last Dance* to *Stomp the Yard* to *High School Musical*; the Exclaim! review adds *Hairspray*, *You Got Served*, *Twilight*, and *Black Snake Moan* to the list.[8](https://www.blackfilm.com/20090521/features/marlonwayans.shtml) • [7](https://exclaim.ca/film/article/dance_flick-directed_by_damien_dante_wayans) One extended gag has [David Alan Grier](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-alan-grier), as the [Suge Knight](https://www.edgepedia.org/suge-knight)-like character Sugar Daddy, singing a four-minute *Dreamgirls* spoof song about his love of food.[7](https://exclaim.ca/film/article/dance_flick-directed_by_damien_dante_wayans)
## The Wayans family production
The film is a multigenerational family project. The older generation, brothers Keenen Ivory, Shawn, and Marlon Wayans, produced and co-wrote it alongside Rick Alvarez, while the second generation supplied the director, Damien Dante Wayans, and co-writer Craig Wayans, with Damon Wayans Jr. in the lead role.[1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/dance-flick) • [8](https://www.blackfilm.com/20090521/features/marlonwayans.shtml) Marlon Wayans credited Shawn, Craig, and Damien with the original idea, and described the division of labor: Shawn generated ideas, Marlon worked on characters and situations, and Keenen "puts it all together."[8](https://www.blackfilm.com/20090521/features/marlonwayans.shtml)
For Damien Dante Wayans, the film was his directorial debut.[4](https://www.darkhorizons.com/damien-wayans-for-dance-flick/) He described the family's approach to parody as organic rather than planned: "if something hits us and it sparks an idea or a germ of an idea, we'll bounce it around one another." He also said the family writes "with no handcuffs" until the studio requests cuts.[4](https://www.darkhorizons.com/damien-wayans-for-dance-flick/)
The film marked a return to the spoof genre the family had worked in with *Scary Movie* (2000), and Paramount's own synopsis framed it that way: "What the Wayans Brothers did for Scary Movie they're now doing for Dance Flick."[1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/dance-flick) • [7](https://exclaim.ca/film/article/dance_flick-directed_by_damien_dante_wayans)
## Release and ratings
The release date moved twice during production: from February 6, 2009 to August 14, 2009, and then forward to May 22, 2009.[9](https://www.movieinsider.com/m4481/dance-flick) It opened in 2,450 theaters and was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 8, 2009 by Paramount Home Video.[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dance-Flick) The MPAA rated it PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, and language; in Australia the Classification Board gave it MA 15+ with the consumer advice "strong crude humour," dated 3 June 2009.[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dance-Flick) • [10](https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/dance-flick) Shawn Wayans, asked about the PG-13 rating in an interview, called it "PG-13-esque."[11](https://thedivareview.com/Dance_Flick_Interview.htm)
## Box office
Against a production budget of $25,000,000, the film opened domestically at $10,643,536, 41.3 percent of its eventual domestic total, and finished with $25,662,155 domestically and $31,439,140 worldwide, about 1.3 times its production budget.[5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1153706/) • [3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dance-Flick) The Numbers records slightly higher totals, $25,794,018 domestic and $32,224,624 worldwide.[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dance-Flick) The film dropped 55 percent in its second weekend, grossing $4,743,636.[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dance-Flick)
## Reception
Critical response was negative. Rotten Tomatoes reports an 18 percent Tomatometer from 94 reviews, with a critics' consensus that the film "scores a few laughs thanks to the Wayans brothers' exuberance, but it's ultimately a scattershot collection of gags without much direction."[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dance_flick) Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 40, "mixed or average," from 17 critic reviews, with 4 positive, 8 mixed, and 5 negative.[6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dance-flick/critic-reviews/) Audience scores ran higher than critics' scores: the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter stood at 30 percent from more than 250,000 ratings, and IMDb users gave it 3.6.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dance_flick) • [12](https://cinegraph.org/movies/dance-flick-2009)
Reviewers split on which gags worked. [Entertainment Weekly](https://www.edgepedia.org/entertainment-weekly)'s Owen Gleiberman called it an "enjoyably dirty-minded sendup of when-ballet-met-hip-hop youth musicals" and gave it 75; [The Hollywood Reporter](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-hollywood-reporter) and The New York Times also reviewed it at 70. At the low end, Variety found it "settling for obvious punchlines" and short of the bar set by *Scary Movie*, and [The A.V. Club](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-a-v-club)'s Nathan Rabin wrote that "it would be hard to imagine a film with less going for it."[6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dance-flick/critic-reviews/) Will Sloan in Exclaim! judged that the film hit its mark about 20 percent of the time, which he placed ahead of the Friedberg/Seltzer spoofs *Date Movie* and *Epic Movie*, while describing the rest as "sloppy and disorganized, with jokes being set up but not paid off."[7](https://exclaim.ca/film/article/dance_flick-directed_by_damien_dante_wayans)
## Animal welfare certification
American Humane monitored the production's animal action through its No Animals Were Harmed program and granted Full Certification. Its report notes that a dead deer seen smashed between two cars was a prop, and that two scenes, one with seagulls appearing to attack a woman and one with a dog "humping" objects, were cut from the theatrical release but might appear on the DVD.[13](https://www.americanhumane.org/production/dance-flick/)
## References
1. [Dance Flick, Paramount Pictures](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/dance-flick)
2. [Dance Flick, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dance_flick)
3. [Dance Flick (2009), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dance-Flick)
4. [Damien Wayans for "Dance Flick", Dark Horizons](https://www.darkhorizons.com/damien-wayans-for-dance-flick/)
5. [Dance Flick (2009), Box Office Mojo](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1153706/)
6. [Dance Flick critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dance-flick/critic-reviews/)
7. [Dance Flick, Exclaim! (Will Sloan, May 21, 2009)](https://exclaim.ca/film/article/dance_flick-directed_by_damien_dante_wayans)
8. [DANCE FLICK: An Interview with Marlon Wayans, Blackfilm.com (May 18, 2009)](https://www.blackfilm.com/20090521/features/marlonwayans.shtml)
9. [Everything You Need to Know About Dance Flick Movie (2009)](https://www.movieinsider.com/m4481/dance-flick)
10. [DANCE FLICK, Australian Classification](https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/dance-flick)
11. [Dance Flick Interview, The Diva Review](https://thedivareview.com/Dance_Flick_Interview.htm)
12. [Dance Flick, Cinegraph](https://cinegraph.org/movies/dance-flick-2009)
13. [Dance Flick, American Humane Society](https://www.americanhumane.org/production/dance-flick/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2009 to 2010 › Released in 2009*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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