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Poster for The Big Chill
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Released
1983 · FILM

The Big Chill

A group of once‑idealistic college friends reconvene for a weekend after a classmate’s funeral, forcing them to confront the gap between their youthful dreams and their current lives.

“The story of eight old friends searching for something they lost, and finding that all they needed was each other.”

Directed by
Lawrence Kasdan
Written by
Lawrence Kasdan, Barbara Benedek
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
105 min
ComedyDrama

Synopsis

Seven old college friends come together for a weekend reunion following the funeral of one of their former classmates.

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: 18

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 Carol LittletonShot by John BaileyDesigned by Ida Random

Box Office

1983 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 7.0× 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

$56.3M

Budget$8.0M
Worldwide gross$56.3M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $3.7M — 6% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $5.1M — 9% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 722 theaters

Re-release box office

199850 theaters
$57K($116K today)

Domestic gross earned in theatrical re-release, by year · adjusted for inflation

Also known as

  • Der große Frustde
  • Reencuentroes
  • Les Copains d'abordfr
  • Il grande freddoit

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