Willard
A socially isolated man bonds with a swarm of intelligent rats to escape his abusive mother and ruthless business partner, only to unleash a deadly uprising that forces him to choose between vengeance and his own humanity.
“When the cat's away, the rats will play.”
Synopsis
Willard, repressed and lonely, forms a bond with a group of rats living in his late father's decaying mansion. In the company of these creatures, he finds brief respite from the daily abuse inflicted by his bedridden mother and his father's former business partner, Frank. It soon becomes evident that the rats are prepared to take violent and deadly revenge against anyone who dares mistreat their vulnerable new ally.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 19
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 James CoblentzShot by Robert MclachlanScored by Shirley WalkerDesigned by Mark S Freeborn
Box Office
2003 · 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
$8.6M
Opening week (7-day): $4.8M
Peak 1,761 theaters
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Cast & Crew
19 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Directors
1Writers
3Producers
2Other crew
5Parents Guide
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