erik lundegaard

Monday July 18, 2016

Box Office: Not Many Call Ghostbusters

Paul Feig's Ghostbusters

Meh reviews, meh box office, but McKinnon (far right) is getting good notices.

Paul Feig's womencentric “Ghostbusters” isn't exactly a bust, raking in $46 million at the domestic box office this weekend, a bigger opening than any of his other movies (“Bridesmaids,” “The Heat,” “Spy”), but it's not exactly a smash. “Ghostbusters” is supposed to be big. The original took in a domestic total of $610 million (adjusted) in 1984, while this version didn't even win the weekend. It finished second to the second weekend of “The Secret Life of Pets,” which fell only 50% to gross another $50 mil. Hell, in the genre “Horror comedy,” “Scary Movie 3” opened bigger in 2003: $48 mil. That's unadjusted. 

“Scary Movie 3” also barely grossed twice that ($110) while Feig's movies tend to have legs, grossing four times (or in the case of “Bridesmaids,” six times) their opening total. So we'll see. The movie got a positive 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which would help, but most reviews were of the “Could've been worse” variety, which won't. But SNL's Kate McKinnon is getting good notices. I'm sure I'll see it at some point. 

“The Legend of Tarzan,” in third place with $11.1, crossed the $100 million mark to $103, with $90 mil in foreign sales, so it's not doing poorly for a poorly reviewed film that never finished in first place.

Meanwhile, “Finding Dory” grossed another $11.1 for a $445 million total, which makes it, according to Box Office Mojo, not only the highest-grossing Pixar movie ever but the highest-grossing animinated movie ever, passing “Shrek 2”'s $441. That's unadjusted, of course. Adjust, and it's still Disney's “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” which is the 10th-best of all time at $935 million. Even so, impressive for “Dory,” which I found B-level Pixar. 

For the year, “Dory”'s on top domestically, while worldwide it's still “Captain America: Civil War” at $1.15 billion. But since “Finding Nemo” grossed $936 worldwide in 2003, I expect “Dory” to eventually pass Cap here, too.

Posted at 05:59 AM on Monday July 18, 2016 in category Movies - Box Office  
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