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Released
1998 · FILM

Clay Pigeons

A guilt-ridden small-town man, entangled in an affair that led to his friend's suicide, finds himself unwittingly aiding a serial killer in a darkly comedic spiral of mistaken friendship and deadly consequences.

Lester Long never forgets a friend.

Directed by
Written by
Runtime
104 min
ComedyCrime

Synopsis

Clay is a young man living in a small town who witnesses his friend Earl commit suicide as a result of Clay's ongoing affair with Earl's wife, Amanda. Stricken with guilt, Clay begins to resist Amanda's attempts to continue the affair. Unaware of Lester Long's true nature, Clay befriends the man, who is in fact a serial killer. Lester ultimately murders Amanda, believing he is helping his "fishing buddy."

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 21

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 Stan SalfasShot by Eric Alan EdwardsScored by John LurieDesigned by Clark Hunter

Box Office

1998 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.2× 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

$1.8M

Budget$8.0M
Worldwide gross$1.8M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $1.8M 100% of worldwide · International: $6K (0%)

Opening weekend: $167K 9% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Peak 19 theaters

Also known as

  • Clay Pigeons – Lebende Zielede
  • Lebende Zielede
  • Demasiado profundoes
  • Il sapore del sangueit

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