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Official Trailer

Being John Malkovich(1999)
Released
1999 · FILM

Being John Malkovich

An underemployed puppeteer in New York uncovers a hidden portal that leads straight into the mind of John Malkovich, and must decide whether to exploit the surreal experience for profit or risk losing everything he loves.

“Ever wanted to be someone else? Now you can.”

Directed by
Spike Jonze
Written by
Charlie Kaufman
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
113 min
ComedyDramaFantasy

Synopsis

In the film, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig discovers a portal that leads into the mind of actor John Malkovich. The portal quickly becomes an obsession, as those who enter experience a bizarre and dominating reality in which they take control of another person's body.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 31

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

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 Eric ZumbrunnenShot by Lance AcordScored by Carter BurwellDesigned by K K Barrett

Box Office

1999 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.8× 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

$22.9M

Budget$13.0M
Worldwide gross$22.9M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $638K — 3% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $1.0M — 4% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 25 theaters

Full synopsis

Also known as

  • Being John Malkovichde
  • Dans la peau de John Malkovichfr
  • Essere John Malkovichit

Companies

ProductionAstralwerks, Gramercy Pictures (I), Propaganda Films

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