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Poster for Hairspray
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Released
1988 · FILM

Hairspray

Pleasantly plump teen Tracy Turnblad fights to win a spot on Baltimore’s beloved dance show and use her new fame to break its racial barriers, battling jealous rival Amber and the town’s segregationist power brokers.

“The world was in a mess... but their hair was perfect!!”

Directed by
John Waters
Written by
John Waters
Runtime
92 min
ComedyDramaMusic
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

Tracy Turnblad, a "pleasantly plump" teenager, achieves her dream of becoming a regular on the Corny Collins Dance Show. As a teen idol, she uses her newfound fame to advocate for the causes she supports, particularly integration. Her activism draws the ire of the show's former star, Amber Von Tussle, and Amber's segregationist parents. The conflict intensifies as Tracy and Amber compete for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963.

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: 19

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 Janice HamptonShot by Dave InsleyScored by Kenny VanceDesigned by Vincent Peranio

Box Office

1988 · Box office

✅ Made its money back — grossed 3.3× 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

$6.7M

Budget$2.0M
Worldwide gross$6.7M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $577K — 9% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $809K — 12% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 79 theaters

Also known as

  • Grasso è belloit

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