Shrugging nation concedes it might as well see Ghostbusters this weekend
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is on track to "win" the weekend with a sleepy $42 million at the box office
Aux News Ghostbusters
Shrug it from the rooftops, people; let out your most exultant and victorious “Eh, why not?”s: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is set to win the weekend box office, “defeating” several movies that have been in theaters for nearly a month at this point, and a Sydney Sweeney nunsploitation movie that not even big “Nuns ‘n Devils” fans seem to like all that much. Per Deadline, the film—directed by Gil Kenan, working from a script he co-wrote with Ghostbusters designated heir Jason Reitman—is expected to bring in between $42-$44 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend. Which is fine! It’s fine.
And while we might be inclined to make a little fun of Ghostbusters: Paul Rudd Is Cold! for seeming extremely content to coast largely on whatever base animal reactions people still have to seeing Dan Aykroyd’s face hovering above a brown jumpsuit at this point, the film’s lukewarm victory is also just a marker for what’s been a very sleepy 2024 movie season overall. Sure, Dune: Part Two opened to $82 million, and Kung Fu Panda 4 to $58 million, but those are the high-water marks. Compare this weekend to exactly a year ago, and you’ll find Finn Wolfhard, Grace McKenna, and Slimer getting their butts kicked by John Wick: Chapter 4, which nearly doubled what they’re expected to take in this weekend. (Note: We would watch a movie where John Wick kills Slimer.)
Whatever this sleepy season says about current movie-going tastes, it’s probably not “Humanity has an inexhaustible demand for family-friendly Ghostbusters movies where Paul Rudd learns how to be your step-dad”; we’ll have to see if people respond more powerfully to big honking monsters instead, as Godzilla x Kong: This Time They’re Friends Now opens in theaters next week.
43 Comments
About to go see Dune 2 again because my kid’s home for spring break and wants to see it. I have an annual pass at my local theater that gives me 1 free ticket per day, so if I see everything else I’m more interested in, I might watch GB:FE, but… I also don’t want to encourage them?
Well that settles it.
Seeing Dune 2 again is the correct choice
It actually was! I enjoyed it more this time through, having a better sense of what was happening. Not that I didn’t enjoy it the first time, but having all the pieces slotted into place beforehand made the narrative stronger.
Go see Love Lies Bleeding instead!
I’m gonna!
Followed your advice and took the kids to see Love Lies Bleeding. What the fuck, man?!?
Per day? What does that annual pass cost? Wow. Are you taking a stroll in your time machine and seeing a film for a nickel…?
The default price is $199 for one year, but they pretty often do $99 sales. It’s a 10-screen multiplex and they have a pretty good selection of films. E.g. in the months leading up to the Oscars they were re-showing a ton of the nominated films, even those that had been released a while ago. Plus they do a series called “Film 101″ where they show classics from ages past.
Immaculate was way better than I expected, not sure what the middling reviews are about, but I thought it was a pretty solid horror flick.
Couldn’t have hurt that T-Mobile gave their subscribers $5 tickets to see the new Ghostbusters.
“Not only am I on a subpar cell phone network, you’re actively paying me to go see bad movies in theaters that you are somehow spending advertising dollars on?”
It’s Mckenna Grace.
Busting makes you feel “meh”
I tolerate this town!
“Let’s say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. According to this morning’s sample, it would be a Twinkie 3.9 inches tall, weighing approximately 1.4 ounces.”“That’s an average Twinkie.”
Human spelling bees, dogs and cats maintaining a respectful distance…mass on Sundays!
I ain’t enthused by no ghost!
Don’t they usually post box offices rankings in this weekly article….? What else is on.
Ill watch to see hijinx of Podcast. And the new character, Social Media App.
Hollywood starts making movies for normal people again, and they make tons of money. Who would have figured?
This is “tons”?
Compared to the “For Conservatives” movie products, “starring an aging Kevin Sorbo” or someone else, this is TONS and TONS of money.
Nah, it isn’t. Dude’s just trying to trigger what he imagines are “liberals” online via ::checks notes:: box office numbers that mean pretty much nothing.Weird nerds should be less weird.
You know, for reference, the 2016 Ghostbusters opened to $46 million, $2-4 million more than Frozen Empire is projected to open this weekend. So I guess this installment wasn’t woke enough. Or something.
Which one cost $45 million more to make?
Who’s calling a $42-44 million opening “tons” of money?
It’s relative, even among blockbuster movies. But if you need to hear it, $44 million is a shit ton of money.
Ghostbusters 2016 appealed to normal people too. Not sure what you’re implying. Women are 50% of the population. Doesn’t get any more normal than that.
I guess I was mistaken by what you were implying.
It’s not that he doesn’t hate women, and films starring them, it’s just that he thinks he can get more mileage out of an anti-trans stance in this particular thread, even though the biggest movie last year had a trans-woman in it, and he couldn’t name three “movies for abnormal people” that were supposedly so suffusing the culture that it nearly destroyed the theater industry (coincidentally during an era when a pandemic shut down for a whole year and transformed the way everyone watches media).
I miss when trolls were funny, or clever in any way whatsoever. Nowadays it’s all redpilled dipshits trying to do a psyop in comment sections.
Plus, Answer the Call was the first GB movie in almost three decades, so it had that Episode 1 effect.
You’re not wrong, but you got some feelings about this mundane low-effort movie huh.
I don’t generally see movies in theaters any more, but part of the problem is that I had no idea this came out in March. I have not seen a ton of advertising for it – in fairness, I don’t watch much TV live these days – and the trailer I saw for it prominently featured the song “Cruel Summer”. I was expecting this to be a June/July release and sort of just put it out of my mind.
I saw the previews for it during Dune. It looked alright, but I never saw that last sequel. I figured I should watch that one first, but I’ve never seen it pop up on a streaming service I subscribe too and searching for it just seemed like a lot of work. 🥱
I went to see this film in the spirit the headline suggests. Yeah, it was a pretty innofensive, family friendly sitcom. Like one of those old “Herbie” or “Apple Dumpling Gang” films Disney used to make.
People want something new. Something novel. Something unexpected and exciting. Something fresh. You know, like Ghostbusters was back in 1984… forty freaking years ago!
You’d think “Barbenheimer” would have demonstrated that. But virtually every trailer was for a sequel or a reboot, so I guess we’re going to see more weekend box office numbers like this for the time being.
The problem isn’t that people want something novel, it’s that they don’t know what they want. And they definitely would rather whine than celebrate.
I don’t think that’s the issue. Remakes and reboots and sequels have been with us for a long time. Just look at how many old Universal horror movies start with “Son of…”The issue is the ratio of those to originals. For most of Hollywood history, originals dominated. Really, even up to the 1990’s most of the studio’s release slates weren’t sequels/prequels/reboots/recycled IP. It was definitely a big part of their business model, but not the only or dominant part.
It’s better than Afterlife by virtue of the fact it feels like an actual sequel and not solely a hollow nostalgia mine – though it does have intermittent doses of that. It’s definitely got problems, most notably the overabundance of characters and plotlines, but I had fun just watching a ghost busting mystery unravel.
Been trying to find a local theater still running Dune 2. Suggested “Frozen Empire” as a joke.The look I received in return tells me this was not something that it was OK to even joke about seeing. Reviews and the couple people I know who paid to see it already just confirming it.I’m guessing there will be people performatively defending it, much the same as Afterlife and others. Maybe some day they’ll get back to trying to make a comedy.
Afterlife was a fun watch. It wasn’t Honor Among Thieves or anything, but it didn’t make me regret the movie ticket?