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Released
2006 · FILM

Take the Lead

A former professional dancer takes a job teaching a tough inner‑city school class, fighting skepticism and his own past to ignite the students’ love of dance before they graduate without hope.

Never Follow

Directed by
Written by
Runtime
118 min
DramaMusic

Synopsis

A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students, he gradually connects with them through his passion and dedication.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 22

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 Robert IvisonShot by Alex NepomniaschyScored by Swizz BeatzDesigned by Paul D Austerberry

Box Office

2006 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.2× 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

$65.7M

Budget$30.0M
Worldwide gross$65.7M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $34.7M 53% of worldwide · International: $31.0M (47%)

Opening weekend: $12.8M 37% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $15.8M46% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 3,009 theaters

Also known as

  • Dance! Jeder Traum beginnt mit dem ersten Schrittde
  • Dance with Mefr
  • Ti va di ballare?it

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