Short Circuit (1986 film) nicely acted". The "Sun-Sentinel" gave a good review, saying, "Number Five is the real star of this energetic film. Sheedy, Guttenberg and company are just supporting players." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" rated it 1.5 out of 4 four stars and called it "too cute for its own good". "Short Circuit" debuted at No. 1 in the US box office. It grossed a total of $40,697,761, ranking it 21st for 1986 in the United States; it performed slightly better than other 1986 hits like "Pretty in Pink", "The Fly", "Three Amigos", "Little Shop Of Horrors" and "About Last Night".
The Little Shop of Horrors with us, and the three of us worked out the rest of the story together. The first screenplay Griffith wrote was "Cardula", a Dracula-themed story involving a vampire music critic. After Corman rejected the idea, Griffith says he wrote a screenplay titled "Gluttony", in which the protagonist was "a salad chef in a restaurant who would wind up cooking customers and stuff like that, you know? We couldn't do that though because of the code at the time. So I said, "How about a man-eating plant?", and Roger said, "Okay." By that time, we were both drunk." Jackie Joseph later