Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire makes (a little) more than estimated at the weekend box office

As predicted, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has easily won the domestic box office this weekend, but it made slightly more money than even Sony’s early predictions: It debuted to $45 million in the U.S., which is a nice big number compared to everything else on the charts, but is… not so nice or big when compared to the debut of its predecessor, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. That one debuted to $44 million in November of 2021, which was still when we were taking COVID-19 seriously, so Frozen Empire is going to need serious legs in order to make an impact.

Dune: Part Two held on to second for the third week in a row (here I am, here I remain, amirite?), adding another $17 million or so to its solid $233 million haul after four weeks. Kung Fu Panda 4 fell to third, making just under $17 million with $133 million after three weeks. Then we have a newcomer, Sydney Sweeney’s nun-y horror movie Immaculate (there’s still a normal church-y movie in the top 10, don’t worry), which debuted to $5 million, followed by dog movie Arthur The King with $4 million.

Kicking off the other half of the top 10 is partially AI-generated horror movie Late Night With The Devil, then Imagrinary, Love Lies Bleeding, Cabrini (that’s the other church-y one), and Bob Marley: One Love (which has been on the charts for six weeks but doesn’t even have $100 million to show for it). There aren’t a lot of other interesting things happening at the domestic box office, so can we talk about how Cabrini is about the woman who was indirectly the namesake of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green complex, the home of Candyman? She’s the patron saint of immigrants and was the first American citizen canonized by the Catholic church, but we hear her name and just think “that’s where Candyman lives” or “yet another church-y movie at the U.S. box office this weekend.” Hell of a legacy.

Here’s the list again. We got it from Box Office Mojo, as usual.

• Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
• Dune: Part Two
• Kung Fu Panda 4
• Immaculate
• Arthur The King
• Late Night With The Devil
• Imaginary
• Love Lies Bleeding
• Cabrini
• Bob Marley: One Love