Bad Words
Misanthropic dropout Guy Trilby schemes to hijack the National Golden Quill Spelling Bee for cash, but his reckless plan collides with eager young spellers and a relentless organizer, turning a harmless loophole into a high‑stakes showdown.
“The end justifies the mean.”
Synopsis
Forty-year-old misanthrope Guy Trilby enters the National Golden Quill Spelling Bee by exploiting a loophole in the rules.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
A crew of 43+ credited
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Tatiana S RiegelShot by Ken SengScored by Rolfe KentDesigned by Shepherd Frankel
Box Office
2013 · Box office
📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.8× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$7.8M
Also known as
- Juegos de palabrases
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Cast & Crew
43 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Jason Bateman
as Guy Trilby
Kathryn Hahn
as Jenny Widgeon
Allison Janney
as Dr. Bernice Deagan
Rohan Chand
as Chaitanya Chopra
Philip Baker Hall
as Dr. Bowman
Ben Falcone
as Pete Fowler
Steve Witting
as Proctor at Spelling Bee
Beth Grant
as Bedazzled Judge
Gwen Parden
as Brace Faced Girl
Anjul Nigam
as Sriram Chopra
Allan Miller
as Bald Glasses Judge
Bob Stephenson
as Bill Murhoff
Supporting cast
21Patricia Belcher
as Ingrid
Matthew Zhang
as Braden Aftergood
Madison Hu
as Ling Quan
Michael Patrick Mcgill
as Beet Red Father
Judith Hoag
as Petal Dubois
Rachael Harris
as Eric Tai's Mother
Mychael Bates
as Lobster Man
Greg Cromer
as Jeremy 'FBI Agent'
Kimleigh Smith
as Marzipan
Ethan Dizon
as Ricky Irvine
Emily Sarah Carlson
as Joyce Sacks
Jacquie Barnbrook
as Joyce Sacks' Mom
Mak Kriksciun
as Mickey Carlson
Sonia Nam
as Jayleen Song
Lucky Davis
as Leonard Feldman
Terry Shusta
as Cop #1
Connor Kalopsis
as Eric Tai
Amanda Anka
as National Public Television Narrator
Tanner Goad
as Kid #1 on Bike
William Maltz
as Chip
Gregory Sutton
as Irate Driver
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
4Other crew
6Parents Guide
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