Cadillac Records
Ambitious record exec Leonard Chess battles entrenched racism, cutthroat competition, and personal demons as he strives to turn Chicago’s gritty blues clubs into a groundbreaking empire that will define the sound of a generation.
Synopsis
The story explores the themes of sex, violence, race, and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, focusing on the thrilling yet turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James, and Chuck Berry.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 20
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 Peter C FrankShot by Anastas N MichosScored by Terence BlanchardDesigned by Linda Burton
Box Office
2008 · Box office
📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.7× 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
$8.9M
Opening week (7-day): $4.3M
Peak 687 theaters
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Cast & Crew
20 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
2Other crew
7Parents Guide
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