Great Balls of Fire! backdrop
Great Balls of Fire! poster
#6,789 All-time worldwide
#71 1989 releases

Movie profile

Great Balls of Fire!

1989 · 108 min · Orion Pictures

Drama History Music
IMDb FilmDB Where to watch

Box office snapshot

Financial performance

Reference figures based on available reported data.
Worldwide gross $13.7M
Budget $17.0M
Gross minus budget -$3.3M
ROI 0.81x

Domestic gross

$6.9M

Estimated from worldwide gross

International gross

$6.9M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Opening weekend

$1.2M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Ranking context

Where Great Balls of Fire! ranks

Positioned across the all-time chart, release year, studio, franchise and genre indexes where enough mapped data exists.
Open rankings
All-time worldwide #6,789 All-time chart position of 12,922 titles Compared with every rankable movie in the current worldwide dataset. 1989 releases #71 Release-year chart position of 218 titles Ranked against movies released in 1989. Studio / company #37 Orion Pictures of 80 titles Position inside the mapped Orion Pictures movie set. Primary genre #2,796 Drama of 5,859 titles Genre context based on the first mapped genre on this profile.

Nearby worldwide ranks

Comparable titles immediately around this movie by reported worldwide gross.

#6,786 The Experiment 2001 · $13.8M #6,787 Salyut-7 2017 · $13.8M #6,788 Student Of The Year 2012 · $13.7M #6,790 Eddington 2025 · $13.7M #6,791 One Night with the King 2006 · $13.7M #6,792 Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers 2021 · $13.7M

Quick answer

How did Great Balls of Fire! (1989) perform at the box office?

High confidence

Great Balls of Fire! (1989) earned a reported $13.7M worldwide against a reported $17.0M production budget. Its gross-minus-budget figure is about -$3.3M. The current gross-to-budget multiple is 0.81x. In this database it currently ranks #6,789 in the current all-time worldwide chart set and #71 among 1989 releases.

Worldwide gross
$13,741,060
Budget
$17,000,000
Gross minus budget
-$3,258,940
ROI
0.81x
Source: TMDb. Last updated: Jul 13, 2026. View source Gross-minus-budget is not studio net profit. It excludes marketing, distribution fees, revenue splits, tax incentives and later home/streaming revenue.

Synopsis

Story

The story of Jerry Lee Lewis, arguably the greatest and certainly one of the wildest musicians of the 1950s. His arrogance, remarkable talent, and unconventional lifestyle often brought him into conflict with others in the industry, and even earned him the scorn and condemnation of the public.

Movie facts

Production details

Release date
Jun 30, 1989
Production
Orion Pictures
Countries
US

Related indexes

Browse related box office pages

Studio / production companyOrion Pictures Release year chart1989 box office Genre chartDrama Genre chartHistory Genre chartMusic

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Where to watch

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AI summary

Why this movie matters

Released in 1989, Great Balls of Fire! is positioned in this dataset as a Drama, History, Music title from Orion Pictures. Its box office profile shows that available worldwide gross is $13.7M, reported production budget is $17.0M, gross-minus-budget is -$3.3M, ROI is 0.81x. For comparison, it currently sits #6,789 all-time in the current chart set and #71 among 1989 releases. Streaming availability should be checked against the selected United States region because provider rights can change.

AI-generated contextual summary based on available movie, genre, ranking and box office data. It does not replace official distributor notes or financial reporting.
Data noteGross minus budget is not studio net profit. It excludes marketing, distribution fees, revenue splits, tax incentives and downstream revenue. Domestic, international and opening weekend figures marked as estimated are modelled estimates.