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Poster for The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
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Released
1990 · FILM

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane

Rock‑n‑roll sleuth Ford Fairlane must track down a vanished groupie and expose a deadly conspiracy before the killer strikes again on live TV, risking his reputation and life in L.A.’s cutthroat music scene.

“Kojak. Columbo. Dirty Harry. Wimps.”

Directed by
Renny Harlin
Written by
Daniel Waters, James Cappe
Runtime
102 min
ActionAdventureComedy

Synopsis

To the Los Angeles elite, Ford Fairlane is known as "Mr. Rock 'n' Roll Detective." This loudmouthed ladies' man serves an exclusive rock star clientele, who depend on his keen eye and smug discretion. So when a heavy-metal musician dies mid-concert, Fairlane is on the case before the lights come up. But things turn shocking when radio personality Johnny Crunch hires Fairlane to find a missing groupie mere hours before he is electrocuted live on air.

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: 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 Michael TronickShot by Oliver WoodScored by YelloDesigned by John Vallone

Box Office

1990 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.4× 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

$20.4M

Budget$49.0M
Worldwide gross$20.4M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $6.4M — 30% of its US run.

Opening week (7-day): $12.9M — 60% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 1,245 theaters

Also known as

  • Ford Fairlane - Rock'n' Roll Detectivede
  • Ford Fairlane - Rock'n'Roll Detectivede
  • Las aventuras de Ford Fairlanees
  • Les Aventures de Ford Fairlanefr
  • Le avventure di Ford Fairlaneit

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