Primary Colors
A young political operative in a presidential campaign must navigate personal scandals, loyalty, and ambition as his idealism is tested by the messy realities of power and politics.
“What went down on the way to the top.”
Synopsis
This is an adaptation of the best-selling roman à clef about Bill Clinton.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 24
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 Arthur SchmidtShot by Michael BallhausScored by Ry CooderDesigned by Bo Welch
Box Office
1998 · Box office
📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.8× 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
$52.1M
US & Canada: $39.0M — 75% of worldwide · International: $13.1M (25%)
Opening weekend: $12.0M — 31% of its US run.
Opening week (7-day): $15.2M — 39% of its US & Canada run.
Peak 1,965 theaters
Also known as
- Mit aller Machtde
- I colori della vittoriait
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Cast & Crew
24 unique people credited
Top billed cast
John Travolta
as Governor Jack Stanton
Emma Thompson
as Susan Stanton
Kathy Bates
as Libby Holden
Emma Thompson Nm0000668
as Susan Stanton
Larry Hagman
as Gov. Fred Picker
Billy Bob Thornton
as Richard Jemmons
Adrian Lester
as Henry Burton
Maura Tierney
as Daisy
Diane Ladd
as Mamma Stanton
Paul Guilfoyle
as Howard Ferguson
Rebecca Walker
as March
Directors
2Writers
2Producers
3Other crew
8Parents Guide
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Where to watch
Not currently streaming on any platform we track.
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