How Much Did ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ Gross at the Box Office?

‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ proved to be a much bigger successful than many predicted, but just how well did the film perform at the box office?

In the fourth hour of FX’s breakout anthology series FEUD: Bette and Joan, stars Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) prepare for the cinematic release of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? after weeks of hard work on the film holding the potential to make or break their waning careers.

While the two stars know that the work they put into the film is of the highest caliber, each fear that the film may become a box office flop when bad word-of-mouth looks to negatively affect the film’s performance. However, their fears prove to be unjust when What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? becomes an overnight hit among moviegoers who turn out in droves to see the film, but just how well did the film at the box office and how much money did it gross during its run?

According to reports from IMDb, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? raked in an impressive $9 million worldwide during its time in theaters off of a budget of just $980,000! While by today’s standards a total worldwide gross of $9 million for a feature film seems small, by the standards of its era the film was a glorified hit and, with inflation factored in, the box office total for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? rises to $72,429,600!

Not only did the film perform better than the studio, its director or even its stars had predicted, but What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? managed to secure a slot among the top-grossing films of 1962 coming in at No. 14 overall at the box office that year. (Fun Fact: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? also ranked as Warner Bro.’s third-highest grossing film of the year behind only The Music Man and Gypsy.)