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Released
1989 · FILM

Farewell to the King

“In the midst of war, one man vanished into the jungle, and emerged as king.”

Directed by
John Milius
Written by
John Milius, Pierre Schoendoerffer
Runtime
117 min
ActionAdventureDrama

Synopsis

An American soldier who escapes the execution of his comrades by Japanese soldiers in Borneo during WWII becomes the leader of a personal empire among the headhunters in this war story told in the style of Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. The American is reluctant to rejoin the fight against the Japanese on the urging of a British commando team but conducts a war of vengeance when the Japanese attack his adopted people.

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: 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 Carroll Timothy O MearaShot by Dean SemlerScored by Basil PoledourisDesigned by Gil Parrondo

Box Office

1989 · 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

$2.4M

Budget$16.0M
Worldwide gross$2.4M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $1.2M — 48% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $1.5M — 63% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 650 theaters

Also known as

  • Der Dschungelkönig von Borneode
  • Adiós al reyes
  • L'Adieu au roifr
  • Addio al reit

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