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Poster for The Devil's Backbone
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Released
2001 · FILM

The Devil's Backbone

A timid orphan boy at a remote Spanish convent during the closing days of the Civil War must confront a vengeful ghost haunting the halls before the darkness consumes both his new friends and himself.

“What is a ghost?”

Directed by
Guillermo Del Toro
Written by
Guillermo Del Toro, Antonio Trashorras
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
108 min
Language
ES
DramaHorrorThriller
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

In 1939 Spain, during the final days of the Spanish Civil War, a young boy named Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he encounters both friends and adversaries while tracking the silent movements of an enigmatic figure seeking revenge.

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: 26

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 Luis De La MadridShot by Guillermo NavarroScored by Javier NavarreteDesigned by Cesar Macarron

Box Office

2001 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.5× 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

$6.6M

Budget$4.5M
Worldwide gross$6.6M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $755K — 11% of worldwide · International: $5.8M (89%)

Opening weekend: $35K — 5% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Peak 4 theaters

Also known as

  • Das Rückgrat des Teufelsde
  • Devil's Backbonede
  • The Devil's Backbonede
  • The Devil's Backboneen
  • L'Échine du Diablefr
  • La spina del diavoloit

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