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Poster for Malibu's Most Wanted
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Released
2003 · FILM

Malibu's Most Wanted

A wannabe rap star from Malibu must escape a fake kidnapping orchestrated by his own father’s goons, proving he can earn respect on his own terms before his career—and his life—are ruined.

“Ever feel like you don't belong?”

Directed by
John Whitesell
Written by
Fax Bahr, Adam Small
Runtime
86 min
ComedyCrime

Synopsis

A senator orchestrates the kidnapping of his son, a wealthy white teenager who pretends to be black, by a pair of black actors posing as criminals, in an attempt to dissuade him from pursuing a career as a rapper.

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: 22

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 Cara SilvermanShot by Mark IrwinScored by Damon ElliottDesigned by William A Elliott

Box Office

2003 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.3× 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

$34.0M

Budget$15.0M
Worldwide gross$34.0M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $12.6M — 37% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $16.5M — 48% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 2,503 theaters

Also known as

  • Malibu's Most Wantedde
  • Le Rappeur de Malibufr

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