'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' Has a Satisfying Opening Weekend
by EG
The new sequel to a 1984 comedy classic, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, managed to scare up impressive ticket sales over the weekend. The comedy that stars Paul Rudd and Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard exceeded expectations and took the top spot at the box office. Read on for details.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife has restored the luster to Sony’s supernatural franchise.
The holiday tentpole easily topped the weekend chart with a better-than-expected $44 million from 4,315 theaters at the North American box office after succeeding in luring both families and males, the most avid moviegoers in the pandemic era.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife‘s performance is a big win for Sony, which was haunted by its failure to revive the franchise with the 2016 female-skewing Ghostbusters. The studio is counting on big business throughout Thanksgiving week and next weekend.åå
Overseas, Afterlife started off with $16 million from 31 markets for a worldwide launch of $60 million.
The new film is directed by Jason Reitman and is a sequel to the iconic 1984 movie Ghostbusters, which was directed by his dad, Ivan Reitman.
On Saturday, over 33 percent of the audience saw the movie before 4 p.m., indicating a strong turnout among and parents and their kids (children over 5-years-old can now be vaccinated), according to analytics firm EntTelligence.
And, according to PostTrak, nearly 50 percent of the audience was between the ages of 25 and 44, while 57 percent of ticket buyers were male.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife stars Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Annie Potts and Paul Rudd, and follows what happens when a single mom and her two kids arrive in a small town and begin to discover their connection to the original ghostbusters and the secret legacy their grandfather left behind. The film earned an A- CinemaScore from audiences.
The weekend’s other new offerings included the acclaimed biopic King Richard, starring Will Smith as Richard Williams, the father of tennis icons Serena and Venus Williams.
King Richard opened in fourth place with a decidedly disappointing $5.7 million from 3,302 theaters, underscoring the ongoing difficulty adult dramas face when opening nationwide in the pandemic era, and particularly those dramas opening day-and-date in the home (King Richard is available on HBO Max). Heading into the weekend, Warner Bros. was hoping for $7 million to $10 million.
Warners is counting on an A CinemaScore and strong reviews to propel the film throughout the year-end holidays and awards season. The movie is expected to be a strong Oscar contender, with Smith considered a front-runner in the best actor race. “It’s an extraordinary movie with extraordinary critical and audience reactions. It has to be about the play over the next few months,” says Warners domestic distribution president Jeff Goldstein, noting that Oscar winner Green Book opened to $7.5 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend in 2019, including $5.5 million for the three-day weekend.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.