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Poster for Wolfen
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Released
1981 · FILM

Wolfen

A New York City detective and a criminology expert race against time to stop a series of brutal, animal-like murders before the ancient, vengeful spirits behind them claim more victims.

They can hear a cloud pass overhead, the rhythm of your blood. They can track you by yesterday's shadow. They can tear the scream from your throat.

Directed by
Runtime
115 min
HorrorThriller

Synopsis

A New York City police officer and a criminology expert investigate a string of brutal murders in which the victims appear to have been savagely attacked by wild animals. As they dig deeper, they uncover a dark link between the killings and an ancient local legend.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 22

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 Marshall M BordenShot by Gerry FisherScored by James HornerDesigned by Paul Sylbert

Box Office

1981 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.6× 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

$10.6M

Budget$17.0M
Worldwide gross$10.6M
break-even (2.5×)

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