Swimming with Sharks
A hungry young studio exec plots a daring kidnapping of his tyrannical boss to seize power and expose the cutthroat underbelly of Hollywood.
“In Hollywood his dreams could come true. But first he has to make coffee.”
Synopsis
Guy is a young film executive determined to succeed at any cost in Hollywood. He starts working for the influential and ruthless producer Buddy Ackerman, known for his domineering and cold personality. When Guy discovers that his girlfriend, Dawn, is using sex to advance her career, he becomes overwhelmed with frustration. In response, Guy decides to take revenge on Buddy by kidnapping him and subjecting him to harsh and unusual treatment.
Credits
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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 Ed MarxShot by Steven FinestoneScored by Tom HielDesigned by Cecil Gentry
Box Office
1994 · Box office
📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.5× 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
$383K
Also known as
- The Hollywood Factorde
- Unter Haien in Hollywoodde
- El factor sorpresaes
- Il prezzo di Hollywoodit
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Cast & Crew
21 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
2Other crew
8Parents Guide
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