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Poster for Surviving Christmas
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Released
2004 · FILM

Surviving Christmas

A lonely executive returns to his childhood home for Christmas, only to find it occupied by a quirky family who force him to confront his emotional emptiness and rediscover the true meaning of the holiday.

“This year, Christmas comes early. Really early.”

Directed by
Mike Mitchell
Written by
Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont
Runtime
91 min
ComedyRomance

Synopsis

A wealthy executive, Drew Latham, played by Ben Affleck, has no close relationships and becomes nostalgic for his childhood home as Christmas approaches. When he visits the house and finds another family living there, he offers the residents, Tom Valco, played by James Gandolfini, and his wife, Christine, the opportunity to experience the holiday season by staying in a luxury home in exchange for allowing Drew to live in their modest house for a week.

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: 25

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 Craig MckayShot by Peter Lyons CollisterScored by Randy EdelmanDesigned by Caroline Hanania

Box Office

2004 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.3× 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

$14.8M

Budget$45.0M
Worldwide gross$14.8M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $11.7M — 79% of worldwide · International: $3.1M (21%)

Also known as

  • Jingle Bellsde
  • Jingle Bells - Eine Familie zum Festde
  • Wie überleben wir Weihnachten?de
  • Sobreviviendo a la Navidades
  • Famille à louerfr
  • Natale in affittoit

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