Well, here’s something I wouldn’t have guessed after Ghostbusters opened to $46 million in the domestic box office and talk of a sequel immediately started. The Hollywood Reporter says the film is tracking to lose over $70 million and plans for sequels are now shifting to the animated spin-offs only. Sony denied the $70 million amount but not the shift in sequel plans, but we’ll get back to that in a moment.
As of Aug. 7, Ghostbusters had earned just under $180 million at the global box office, including $117 million domestic. The film still hasn’t opened in a few markets, including France, Japan and Mexico, but box-office experts say it will have trouble getting to $225 million despite a hefty net production budget of $144 million plus a big marketing spend. The studio has said break-even would be $300 million. (Via)
That’s unfortunate. I laughed at the movie (it wasn’t the greatest thing ever, but not terrible either, and I’d watch Kate McKinnon in anything), and I can think of plenty of things that got sequels after making me laugh zero times.
A Sony studio rep told THR they’re still planning an animated feature for 2019 or so, as well as the animated TV series, Ghostbusters: Ecto Force, for early 2018. Another rep told THR that the Paul Feig movie “enlivened a 30-year-old brand and put it into the modern zeitgeist. As a result, we have many ideas in the works to further exploit the Ghostbusters universe.”
I want to shoot that quote with a proton beam. Who talks like that? Who earnestly uses the phrase “further exploit” and isn’t curling a Snidely Whiplash mustache around their finger while saying it? How is this a person?
Anyway, Sony denies the $70+ million figure, saying it doesn’t account for “multiple revenue streams, including consumer products, gaming, location-based entertainment, continued international rollout, and huge third-party promotional partnerships that mitigated costs.”
So, yeah, Sony doesn’t seem to be denying that the film is losing money, but it may not be as much as it initially appears. At least they aren’t racist on Twitter, so they’ve got that going for them, which is nice.
On a positive note, perhaps we can finally stop hearing about how this franchise is ruining childhoods.
https://twitter.com/DanaSchwartzzz/status/752366484958183424
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
