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Poster for Return of the Living Dead II
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Released
1988 · FILM

Return of the Living Dead II

When a group of kids accidentally releases a mysterious gas from a mysterious drum, they unleash a zombie plague that turns the dead into ravenous brain-eaters, forcing them to fight for survival against the walking dead.

Just when you thought it was safe to be dead.

Directed by
Written by
Runtime
89 min
ComedyHorrorSci-Fi

Synopsis

A group of children discovers one of the drums containing a rotting corpse and inadvertently releases the 2-4-5 Trioxin gas into the air, causing the dead to rise from their graves once more and begin seeking out brains.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 16

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 Charles BornsteinShot by Robert ElswitScored by J Peter Robinson

Box Office

1988 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.5× 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

$9.2M

Budget$6.0M
Worldwide gross$9.2M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $9.2M 100% of worldwide · International: $2K (0%)

Also known as

  • Die Rückkehr der Höllenzombiesde
  • Toll treiben es die wilden Zombiesde
  • Return of the Living Dead IIen
  • Le Retour des morts-vivants 2fr
  • Il ritorno dei morti viventi 2it

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