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Poster for Videodrome
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Released
1983 · FILM

Videodrome

Max Renn, a UHF TV station president obsessed with pushing the limits of sensationalism, becomes consumed by a mysterious and violent foreign broadcast called Videodrome, which blurs the line between reality, entertainment, and death.

“First it controls your mind. Then it destroys your body.”

Directed by
David Cronenberg
Written by
David Cronenberg
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
88 min
DramaHorrorSci-Fi
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

Max Renn, the president of a lowbrow television network, is in dire need of fresh programming to boost his ratings. He stumbles upon a program called "Videodrome," which features unapologetic displays of torture and suffering. Seeing commercial potential, Max airs the show on his channel. When his girlfriend auditions for the series and disappears without a trace, he begins to probe the reality behind Videodrome, uncovering unsettling evidence that the extreme violence depicted may be real.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 24

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 Ronald SandersShot by Mark IrwinScored by Howard Shore

Box Office

1983 · 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

$2.1M

Budget$6.0M
Worldwide gross$2.1M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $1.2M — 56% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $1.5M — 73% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 600 theaters

Full synopsis

Also known as

  • Vidéodromefr

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