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Released
1998 · FILM

Zero Effect

World’s most eccentric private eye Daryl Zero teams up with eager sidekick Steve Arlo to crack an apparently unsolvable murder, racing against baffling clues and skeptical law enforcement before the killer slips away forever.

The world's most private detective.

Directed by
Written by
Runtime
116 min
ComedyCrimeDrama

Synopsis

Daryl Zero is a private investigator who, along with his assistant Steve Arlo, solves impossible crimes and puzzles. Although Daryl is known for his unconventional methods, his partnership with Arlo allows them to tackle cases that baffle conventional law enforcement. Their work often involves elements of mystery, deduction, and the supernatural, as they uncover secrets hidden by time or design.

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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 Tara TimponeShot by Bill PopeScored by The Greyboy AllstarsDesigned by Gary Frutkoff

Box Office

1998 · 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

$2.0M

Budget$5.0M
Worldwide gross$2.0M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $435K 21% of its US run.

Peak 100 theaters

Also known as

  • La Méthode zérofr

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