Ghostbusters

“While nothing has been officially announced yet, there’s no doubt in my mind it will happen,” said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution at Sony in reference to a sequel to Paul Feig’s all-female ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot.  It appears that the film’s lackluster reception may have changed things.

The movie’s cast, including Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon reportedly signed on for three movies and Sony had hoped to build an entire “universe” around the rebooted franchise, but at this point, it appears that this is a one-and-done deal.  The film has made $180 million globally ($117M domestic) and has yet to open in France, Japan or Mexico, but it will NOT open at all in China, the second largest movie market in the world.  It’s reported that ‘Ghostbusters’ needs to make $300M to break even, which at this point looks very unlikely.  Estimates indicate that the movie will be lucky to even make $225M, which means Sony will likely lose money on this reboot, to the tune of roughly $70M.

Box-office analyst Jeff Bock stated:

Ghostbusters is on ice until further notice.  I just can’t fathom the creative talents behind it — Feig, McCarthy, Wiig, etc. — slogging out another one when the reception to the first one was so mediocre.”

A rep from Sony denies the loss estimates:

“This loss calculation is way off.  With multiple revenue streams, including consumer products, gaming, location-based entertainment, continued international rollout, and huge third-party promotional partnerships that mitigated costs, the bottom line, even before co-financing, is not remotely close to that number.”

At the end of the day, however, it appears that this was simply a movie that no one wanted.  The original 1984 movie is still considered a classic and enjoyed a hefty boost thanks to the buzz around the new flick, and even returned to theaters for a limited run.

It appears that Sony will focus on animated projects, including a new TV series, ‘Ghostbusters: Ecto Force’ in 2018, theatrical film in 2019.

Would you like to see another film with Kristen Wiig, etc.?  Or would you be glad to see this version fade away?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter