Ghostbusters to Lose Money

The Hollywood Reporter says that based on its box office to date the Ghostbusters reboot will lose money:

Immediately upon the opening of Ghostbusters in mid-July, top Sony executives boldly declared a sequel to Paul Feig’s all-female reboot of Ivan Reitman’s 1984 classic was a given. “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.

That was the studio’s last public mention of a sequel. As of Aug. 7, Ghostbusters had earned just under $180 million at the global box office, including $117 million domestic. The film still hasn’t opened in a few markets, including France, Japan and Mexico, but box-office experts say it will have trouble getting to $225 million despite a hefty net production budget of $144 million plus a big marketing spend. The studio has said break-even would be $300 million.

That’s consistent with what I’ve been predicting. However, IMO the politics of the reboot is largely a distraction. The reality is that there’s a ceiling for how much can be spent making an action comedy and $144 million is just too much. It could have been the Citizen Kane of action comedies and it would still have lost money. Maybe that’s not a good example: Citizen Kane didn’t do all that well at the box office, either. In today’s market you’ve got to take a movie’s prospects for international box office into account and comedies just don’t travel that well. The female leads may not have helped but they weren’t the only factor.

What implications will Ghostbusters failure have on the announced female Ocean’s 8? Not as much as you might think in my view. It’s not expected to be a comedy which will broaden the audience. I suspect it might face a different problem.

The Ocean’s 11 reboot did a box office of $450 million. Each of the successive sequels in what has become the “Ocean’s” franchise has earned less. Expect a ceiling of around $300 million for Ocean’s 8. Whether that’s consistent with the all-star cast they’ve announced for it remains to be seen.