Free Willy
Orphaned teen Jesse befriends a captive orca and must outwit a profit‑driven park owner to set the whale free before it’s sold forever.
“How far would you go for a friend?”
Synopsis
A maladjusted orphan named Jesse vandalizes a theme park and is subsequently placed with foster parents, requiring him to work at the park to make amends. While there he meets Willy, a young orca whale separated from his family; sensing kinship, they form a bond and, with assistance from whale trainer Rae Lindley, develop a routine of tricks. Greedy park owner Dial learns of the duo and plans to profit from them.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 36
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 O Nicholas BrownShot by Robbie GreenbergScored by Basil PoledourisDesigned by Charles Rosen
Box Office
1993 · Box office
💰 Box-office hit — grossed 7.7× 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
$153.7M
US & Canada: $77.7M — 51% of worldwide · International: $76.0M (49%)
Opening weekend: $7.9M — 10% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.
Opening week (7-day): $14.0M — 18% of its US & Canada run.
Peak 1,476 theaters
Also known as
- Free Willy - Ruf der Freiheitde
- Liberad a Willyes
- Liberen a Willyes
- Sauvez Willyfr
- Free Willy - Un amico da salvareit
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Cast & Crew
36 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Jason James Richter
as Jesse
Lori Petty
as Rae Lindley
Keiko
as Willy
Michael Madsen
as Glen
Jayne Atkinson
as Annie Greenwood
August Schellenberg
as Randolph Johnson
Michael Ironside
as Dial
Richard Riehle
as Wade
Mykelti Williamson
as Dwight Mercer
Michael Bacall
as Perry
Danielle Harris
as Gwenie
Isaiah Malone
as Vector
Supporting cast
12Betsy Toll
as Passerby #1
Rob Sample
as Passerby #2
Merrilyn Jones
as Passerby #3
Mickey Gaines
as Waiter
Justin R Hall
as Fish Thrower
Robert M Duque
as Fish Thrower
Sam Samson
as Fish Thrower
Willis Van Dusen
as Willis Van Dusen
Tom Lasswell
as Brody
Moultrie Patten
as Homeless Man
Ed Murphy
as Homeless Man
Jim Michaels
as Announcer
Directors
1Writers
2Producers
3Other crew
6Parents Guide
AI Personalities
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