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Released
1990 · FILM

Problem Child

When well-meaning dad Ben Healy adopts a seemingly sweet seven‑year‑old, he must scramble to protect his marriage and sanity as the child’s relentless mischief turns every ordinary outing into catastrophic comedy.

Attila the Hun. Ivan the Terrible. Al Capone. They were all seven once.

Directed by
Runtime
81 min
ComedyFamily

Synopsis

Ben Healy and his socially ambitious wife, Flo, adopt a cheerful seven-year-old boy named Junior. However, they soon realize that he is a mischievous child who transforms a camping trip, a birthday party, and even a baseball game into chaotic and comedic disasters.

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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 Tom FinanShot by Peter Lyons CollisterScored by Miles GoodmanDesigned by George Costello

Box Office

1990 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 7.2× 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

$72.0M

Budget$10.0M
Worldwide gross$72.0M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $53.5M 74% of worldwide · International: $18.5M (26%)

Opening weekend: $10.0M 19% of its US run.

Opening week (7-day): $15.3M29% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 1,714 theaters

Also known as

  • So ein Satansbratende
  • Junior le terriblefr
  • Piccola pesteit

Companies

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