It came without glowing reviews. It came without cheap gags. It came without fart jokes, or political hashtags. And they puzzled and puzzled ’till their puzzlers were sore. Then the Critics thought of something they hadn’t before. What if box office results, they thought, don’t come from us anymore? What if audience appreciation, perhaps, means a little bit more?
If you read articles from the mainstream press about Ghostbusters, you’d have a very different understanding of the movie (and its success) than what is reality. The BBC is running a story about how the movie’s nostalgia is ruining cinema — no joke. Politico has decided the film dedicated to the memory of Harold Ramis is an ideological film made for conservatives — which really makes you wonder what isn’t political in the mindset of Politico. The film barely stayed away from a “rotten score” at Rotten Tomatoes with a 62% rating.
That’s a rundown of what the media narrative is. What’s the reality?
Marvel has just wrapped up three straight box office flops. Disney+ subscriber growth is stagnant despite Marvel and Star Wars shows that are supposed to be very popular. Supposedly the losses are just because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Ghostbusters Afterlife has just overperformed box office expectations, due greatly to people in the heartland of America coming out to see it. The film has a 96% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes with over 2,000 individual reviews turned in. The word-of-mouth metrics like the Cinemascore are awesome. In other words, Ghostubers Afterlife is headed for an amazing Thanksgiving week, and Sony is almost certain to greenlight another movie based on the original Ghostbusters and the new generation learning from them.
Ghostbusters Afterlife Spoiler-Free Review: Ignore the Haters
Ghostbusters had 33% of its audience show up before 4PM over the weekend, a key indicator of the film being a family favorite. Do you know what kind of films do very well on Thanksgiving weekends? The kinds of movies that families go to see.
With a budget of only 75 million, the movie will likely cross that number in the upcoming week with a probably strong-hold on domestic totals alone. Then, it’s likely the film will move into profitable territory in early December. Remember that this is at a time whenever Marvel movie released this year has been a loss.
The Eternals Versus Ghostbusters Afterlife: A Critic Collision
The narrative is crumbling. Film studios cannot continue to produce movies at a loss. Ghostbusters Afterlife is clearly the way forward, and all the media spin in the world isn’t going to change the cold hard truth of what people want to see.
This is the Sonic the Hedgehog formula. Give audiences what they want to see and you’ll reap the rewards. Movies don’t have to pander, they just have to respect the characters they portray.
