Little Miss Sunshine is a
2006 American comedy-drama film, and the directorial film debut of the husband-wife team of
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The screenplay was written by first-time writer
Michael Arndt. It stars
Greg Kinnear,
Steve Carell,
Toni Collette,
Paul Dano,
Abigail Breslin, and
Alan Arkin, and was produced by Big Beach Films on a budget of
US$8 million.
The film is a
road movie about a family's trip to a children's
beauty pageant, with a large portion focusing on events related to the family vehicle, a
Volkswagen T2 Microbus. Filming began on June 6, 2005 and took place over 30 days in
Arizona and
Southern California.
The film premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2006, and its distribution rights were bought by
Fox Searchlight Pictures for one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival.
The film had its
limited release in the United States on July 26, 2006 and later expanded to a wider release starting on August 18, 2006.
