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  1. Financial analysis of Better Off Dead... (1985) including budget, domestic and international box office gross, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, total earnings and profitability.

    • August 23rd, 1985 (Wide) by Warner Bros.
    • 97 minutes
    • PG
    • July 16th, 2002 by Paramount Home Video
    • Better Off Dead Is Based on A True Story.
    • Henry Winkler Played A Part in Getting The Movie made.
    • Holland Had to Fight to Cast John Cusack.
    • John Cusack Hated The Movie (though He Swears He didn't).
    • Test Audiences Loved The Claymation Hamburger Scene.
    • Diane Franklin Talked Dodger Stadium Into Letting Her Sing The National Anthem.
    • Curtis Armstrong Was Cast Because of His Role in Risky Business.
    • Aaron Dozier Insulted Holland Before He Auditioned.
    • The Paperboy Looked Tough in Order to Get The Part.
    • Holland Doesn't Think Better Off Dead Would Get Made today.

    Savage Steve Holland wrote the script based on his own high school girlfriend, who did indeed leave him for the captain of the ski team. Six years after the movie came out, his ex got in touch with him. “I got a call—I don’t know how she got my number—and she said, ‘I’ve been in therapy because I saw your movie and I had no idea,’” Holland told The...

    In the early 1980s, Holland’s short film, My 11-Year-Old Birthday Party, played at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Henry Winkler saw the film and took a liking to Holland. “Henry took me to lunch and he said that my movie was so funny,” Holland told Fast Company. “And I’m like, ‘Well, wait a minute—it wasn't supposed to be funny. It’s a sad story ab...

    At Winkler’s suggestion, Holland checked out Cusack in The Sure Thing, which Winklerexecutive produced. After seeing the movie, Holland thought Cusack was perfect for the role. “I couldn’t see anybody past John,” Holland told Entertainment Weekly. “I had a little bit of a scuffle with some of the studio people because John had just been in Sixteen ...

    It’s been widely reported that Cusack basically disowned the movie as soon as he saw it, which was the night before he was to begin filming Holland’s follow-up comedy, One Crazy Summer. Though Cusack had helped Holland edit the movie, the film’s star walked out of the screening 20 minutes into it. “The next morning, [Cusack] basically walked up to ...

    The silly scene takes place at Lane’s fast food job, Pig Burger, when a hamburger comes to life and plays guitar. Holland told Entertainment Weeklyhis first job was working at McDonald’s, which is where the inspiration came from. “There was this rumor that a rat fell into a vat at a chicken place and somebody got served fried rat,” he said. “That w...

    At the end of Better Off Dead, Monique and Lane make out at Dodger Stadium, and Lane plays his sax for her. As a promo for the movie, Franklin had her manager contact the stadium to see if they’d be interested in having her do an autograph signing. “I just kind of thought it would be fun for people, because if they saw the movie, and I was at Dodge...

    Risky Business came out two years before Better Off Dead, and Curtis Armstrong, who played Tom Cruise’s friend Miles in the film, made such a strong impression on Holland that he called Armstrong’s agent and offered Armstrong the part of the JELL-O-snorting Charles De Mar. “I hadn't seen a character like that in so many years—a second banana charac...

    Dozier plays the ski captain and Lane’s rival, Roy Stalin, who’s a bit of jerk—but a good skier. “When I came in, I didn’t know who ‘Savage’ Steve was at first,” Dozier told Moviefone. “I [looked at one guy and] said, ‘Who's this chubby kid?’ Turns out, he’s the director.” Holland remembers Dozier interrupting him as he watched the dailies. “All of...

    Demian Slade was only 12 years old when he won the role of real-life paperboy Johnny Gasparini, who stalked Holland and demanded two dollars from him. When Slade auditioned, he wore a leather jacket and looked serious. “I approached it as if I was a serial killer with no intention of making it funny,” Slade told Entertainment Weekly. “I brought in ...

    Because of the success of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, studios were hungry for teen movies. In an interview with , Holland said the studio, Warner Bros., trusted him. “I would never get that movie made these days, but I just wanted to put in everything I knew about filmmaking—cartoons, claymation, everything—because I figured I’d have one chance a...

    • Garin Pirnia
  2. Box office. $10.3 million. Better Off Dead is a 1985 American black comedy film written and directed by Savage Steve Holland. It stars John Cusack as high school student Lane Meyer, who becomes suicidal after his girlfriend breaks up with him shortly before Christmas.

  3. Aug 24, 2015 · Savage Steve Holland wrote and directed Better Off Dead and has been very candid about how the movie was perceived, especially by John Cusack. "I thought it was going to make a hundred million...

    • sit80s@gmail.com
  4. Jun 22, 2018 · You probably remember him best as that pesky paperboy in 1985's Better Off Dead that just wanted his two dollars. He played that awesome role as a 12-year-old and continued acting in other roles into the early-90s.

  5. Aug 21, 2020 · Although Better Off Dead had a budget of $3 million and grossed $10.3 million at the box office, the studio considered it a failure. Thankfully, the film managed to live beyond the theaters. “Better Off Dead would have never been seen by anybody if HBO didn’t show up, and Blockbuster Video,” Holland says. “It was going to disappear.”

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  7. Better Off Dead is a 1985 black comedy film written and directed by Savage Steve Holland and starring John Cusack. After being dumped by his utterly-unfaithful girlfriend Beth ( Amanda Wyss ), luckless teenager Lane Myer (Cusack) makes several futile attempts to kill himself, while wandering in and out of a series of encounters with the ...

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