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Poster for The Wraith
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Released
1986 · FILM

The Wraith

A mysterious outlaw motorcyclist with an invincible car returns to a desert town to dismantle a ruthless gang’s lethal drag‑race empire and protect the innocent before the terror consumes everyone.

He's not from around here...

Directed by
Written by
Runtime
93 min
ActionHorrorRomance

Synopsis

In an Arizona desert town controlled and terrorized by Packard Walsh and his motorized gang, drivers are forced into drag races to have their vehicles "won" by the criminals. After Walsh kills decent teenager Jamie Hankins for catching him with his girlfriend, a mysterious power gives rise to Jake Kesey, an extremely cool motor-biker with an invincible car. Jake befriends Jamie's girlfriend, Keri Johnson, takes Jamie's younger brother, Bill, under his protection, and succeeds in doing what Sheriff Loomis could not—eliminating Packard's criminal gang the hard way.

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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 Scott ConradShot by Reed SmootScored by Michael Hoenig

Box Office

1986 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.3× 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

$3.5M

Budget$2.7M
Worldwide gross$3.5M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $1.4M 40% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $1.9M55% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 588 theaters

Also known as

  • Interceptor - Phantom der Ewigkeitde
  • Phantomfr
  • Il replicanteit

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