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Released
1987 · FILM

Big Shots

“They stole a Mercedes with a body in the trunk. Who says 11 year olds don't know how to have fun?”

Directed by
Robert Mandel
Written by
Joe Eszterhas
Runtime
91 min
AdventureComedyCrime

Synopsis

Following the death of his father, a suburbanite runs away from home and winds up on Chicago's South Side. After being mugged, the boy befriends a young hustler and, after stealing a gangster's car, the two embark on an adventure down south in search of the hustler's estranged father.

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: 22

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 William M AndersonShot by Miroslav OndricekScored by Bruce BroughtonDesigned by Bill Malley

Box Office

1987 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.3× 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

$3.4M

Budget$10.0M
Worldwide gross$3.4M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $1.4M — 42% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $1.7M — 50% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 932 theaters

Also known as

  • Big Shots - Zwei Kids gegen die Unterweltde
  • Una banda de doses

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