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Poster for The Buddy Holly Story
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Released
1978 · FILM

The Buddy Holly Story

“His story will have you singing, laughing, crying, cheering, and stomping your feet”

Directed by
Steve Rash
Written by
Alan Swyer, John Goldrosen
Runtime
114 min
BiographyDramaMusic

Synopsis

The film chronicles the rise and short-lived career of rock 'n' roll musician Buddy Holly, who seeks to play music according to his own artistic vision. Holly and his band, the Crickets, are initially invited to record in Nashville, where they face creative disagreements with the production team. They later perform at a major engagement at the Apollo Theater, which was booked under the mistaken belief that they were an African American group. Holly eventually pursues a solo career, until his life is cut short on the tragic day the music died.

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: 20

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 David E BlewittShot by Stevan LarnerScored by Joe RenzettiDesigned by Joel Schiller

Box Office

1978 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 12× 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

$14.4M

Budget$1.2M
Worldwide gross$14.4M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Die Buddy Holly Storyde

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