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Poster for Ernest Goes to Camp
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Released
1987 · FILM

Ernest Goes to Camp

A lovable but bumbling summer camp handyman must inspire a rowdy group of delinquents and save the camp from a greedy strip mining company.

“Welcome to Kamp Kikakee, the craziest summer camp ever!”

Directed by
John R Cherry Iii
Written by
John R Cherry Iii, Coke Sams
Runtime
92 min
ComedyFamily
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

Ernest is a lovable loser who works as a summer camp handyman and dreams of becoming a guidance counselor. He must find a way to inspire a group of juvenile delinquents while also stopping a shady strip mining company from closing the camp.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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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 Marshall HarveyShot by Harry MathiasScored by Shane Keister

Box Office

1987 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 7.8× 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

$23.5M

Budget$3.0M
Worldwide gross$23.5M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $7.1M — 30% of its US run.

Opening week (7-day): $7.1M — 30% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 1,541 theaters

Also known as

  • Chaos im Campde
  • La batalla del campamentoes
  • Ernest et les joyeuses coloniesfr
  • Ernesto guai in campeggioit

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