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Poster for Punchline
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Released
1988 · FILM

Punchline

“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”

Directed by
David Seltzer
Written by
David Seltzer
Runtime
123 min
ComedyDramaRomance
Streaming on
  • Crunchyroll

Synopsis

Lilah Krytsick is a mother and housewife who has long believed she could be a stand-up comedian. Steven Gold is an experienced stand-up performer who appears to be on the verge of success. When the two meet, they form an unlikely friendship, and Steven attempts to help the inexperienced Lilah develop her stage act. Despite objections from her family and some very shaky beginnings, Lilah improves and soon finds herself competing with Steven for a coveted television opportunity.

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: 18

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 Bruce GreenShot by Reynaldo VillalobosScored by Charles GrossDesigned by Jackson De Govia

Box Office

1988 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.4× 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

$21.0M

Budget$15.0M
Worldwide gross$21.0M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $161K — 1% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $240K — 1% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 4 theaters

Also known as

  • Punchline - Der Knalleffektde
  • Le Mot de la finfr
  • L'ultima battutait

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