'Ghostbusters' No. 2 With $46M, Slimed By 'Secret Life of Pets'
By Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter
Spooked by The Secret Life of Pets, Sony’s all-female Ghostbusters opened in the No. 2 spot at the North American box office with $46 million from 3,962 theaters, a lukewarm start considering the movie’s sizeable budget.
Pets easily stayed No. 1 in its second weekend as it barked past the $200 million mark domestically, earning $50.6 million from 4,381 locations for a total of $203.2 million through Sunday. Overseas, the Illumination and Universal release has earned $50.8 million so far — it has only opened in nine markets — for an early global total of $254 million.
Another animated tentpole, Finding Dory, also continued to make headlines, becoming the top-grossing animated title of all time in North America with $445.5 million through Sunday (Shrek 2 was the previous champ with $244.2 million), not accounting for inflation. For the weekend, Dory placed No. 4 with $11 million, while overseas it earned another $36.5 million from 45 countries for a worldwide haul of $721.8 million for Pixar and Disney.
Directed by Paul Feig, Ghostbusters hopes to relaunch the storied franchise, but the movie’s early box-office performance doesn’t make that a guarantee, although Sony executives are already promising further installments.
The film, with a net production budget of $144 million (tax rebates and incentives brought it down from $154 million), will need strong legs in the U.S. and be a big player overseas to land in the black for Sony and partner Village Roadshow Pictures.
For the better part of two years, Feig and Sony have come under constant attack from vocal opponents of the decision to make the leads all female. In classic 1984 movie, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Harold Ramis famously starred as the Ghostbusters. This time out, the ghoul chasers are played by McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.
Not surprisingly, Ghostbusters skewed heavily female (57 percent) for an all-audience tentpole, while 63 percent of ticket buyers were over the age of 25. Overall, moviegoers gave the film a B+ CinemaScore, although younger consumers liked it more, with those under the age of 18 giving it an A-.
Ghostbusters marks the biggest domestic opening ever for Feig and McCarthy, his frequent collaborator, but it’s also their first franchise tentpole. Their previous best was The Heat, which debuted to $39.1 million.
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The reboot, also featuring Chris Hemsworth and boasting a number of cameos by stars of the original series, including Murray, is once again set in Manhattan, where a ghost invasion forces a couple of paranormal enthusiasts, a nuclear engineer and subway worker to band together to stop the threat. Ivan Reitman, who directed the 1984 movie, produced the update with former Sony studio chief Amy Pascal.
Heading into the weekend, Sony, trying to manage expectations, predicted a domestic debut of $38 million-$40 million. But others thought the film could cross $50 million, thanks to generally strong reviews (73 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and an aggressive marketing campaign. NRG, the industry’s leading tracking service, even had it debuting to $54 million.
The weekend’s only other new nationwide release was The Infiltrator, starring Bryan Cranston as a federal agent who infiltrates Pablo Escobar’s drug cartel, although it had a relatively small footprint, or 1,601 theaters.
From Broad Green Pictures and directed by Brad Furman, the adult drama earned a better-than-expected $6.7 million over the course of its five-day debut (it opened Wednesday) after nabbing an A- CinemaScore. John Leguizamo, Diane Kruger, Benjamin Bratt, Yul Vazquez and Amy Ryan also star in the movie, which placed No. 8.
Related 'Ghostbusters’: Film Review
There were a flurry of new offerings at the specialty box office, including Woody Allen’s Cafe Society, which nabbed the top location average of the year for any film. The period romantic comedy, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, earned $361,000 from five theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a screen average of $71,000.
For Stewart, Cafe Society will no doubt lessen the sting of Equals, which bombed in its limited theatrical opening after debuting on DirecTV in late May. Starring Stewart opposite Nicholas Hoult, Drake Doremus’ sci-fi love story earned $8,000-$9,000 from three theaters in New York and Canada. A24 partnered with DirecTV in acquiring rights to Equals.
Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza’s Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party scored the top location average of the year for a political documentary in opening to $77,500 from three cinemas in Texas for an average $25,833.
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Watch a video about the all-time box-office champs:
