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Poster for Sharky's Machine
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Released
1981 · FILM

Sharky's Machine

“Nobody leans on Sharky's Machine.”

Directed by
Burt Reynolds
Written by
William Diehl, Gerald Di Pego
Runtime
122 min
ActionCrimeDrama

Synopsis

Tom Sharky, a police officer, is demoted to working vice, where he stumbles upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. As Sharky's new "machine" collects evidence, he also becomes involved with a woman he has never met.

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: 21

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 William D GordeanShot by William A FrakerDesigned by Walter Scott Herndon

Box Office

1981 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.0× 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

$35.6M

Budget$17.5M
Worldwide gross$35.6M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $3.0M — 8% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $4.3M — 12% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 1,388 theaters

Also known as

  • Sharky und seine Profisde
  • La brigada de Sharkyes
  • L'Anti-gangfr
  • Pelle di sbirroit

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