Ghosbusters Afterlife Needs a Solid Fourth Weekend for True Success

Various writers here at That Park Place have covered Ghostbusters Afterlife and its first weekend exceeded expectations. The movie is going to make a profit – it already has. But in all the glowing reports on the film, it’s important to also note that it isn’t the runaway success many had hoped for. To truly be a success, Ghostbusters Afterlife needs a solid fourth weekend before Spider-Man: No Way Home owns every theater everywhere (and it will).

Through its first two weekends, Ghostbusters was rocketing far above what analysts had predicted. However, the third weekend was very strange for cinemas, with regional declines around the United States while other regions held to normal numbers. That suggests that the third weekend for Ghostbusters (and second weekend for Encanto) was affected by public perception of the new pandemic variant. Perhaps some families decided that it was too risky to venture back to a movie theater. But no matter the cause of the odd drop-off, Ghostbusters will need to maximize its last weekend as the family action drama. West Side Story almost certainly isn’t eating into Ghostbusters’ audience. Encanto should see a steep drop in numbers as people realize it’s free on Disney+ in a couple of weeks. This is Ghostbusters last good chance to position itself as a Cinderella story, or limp across the line as a moderate success.

The movie is currently at $145 million worldwide, with the vast majority coming from domestic ticket sales. This is a franchise, much like Star Wars, that does better home than on the international markets. If Ghostbusters can get across the $170 million mark on a $75 million budget, a sequel is absolutely going to happen. To do so, it needs to top $160 this weekend. That’s a rather big ask for the film. It will need to have almost no drop from the prior (weird) weekend to the next. And though that would be bizarre, stranger things have happened during the pandemic box office roller coaster.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife surpasses $115m at the box office, has a strong second weekend – https://t.co/Jl2vVJQuB2 pic.twitter.com/CuI3O9Pele

— Ghostbusters News (@GBNewsdotcom) November 29, 2021

The good news for Sony is that they’re likely to put Ghostbusters Afterlife on streaming around Christmas, but at a rental cost for consumers. That’s far different than Disney’s strategy for Encanto, which was announced as a free offering on Disney+ for Christmas. Did that depress Encanto’s box office returns? Well, you’d have to assume so to some degree. Sony probably made the smarter decision in not announcing anything for Ghostbusters, and by making the decision to run it for additional revenues when it does go online. Meanwhile, they’ll be doing gangbusters (not Ghostbusters) at the box office with Spider-Man No Way Home. That film looks to destroy all the media narratives about pandemic box office potentials (and blow up Marvel’s best arguments), unless an unknown variant issue arises that shuts down theaters.

Can Ghostbusters rise to the challenge? Boy, I sure do hope so. Just like Sonic the Hedgehog, this is a film that listened to fans, is authentic, and doesn’t try to score political points. It’s old-school film-making. If we want to see more of that, there’s only one way to vote that gets the ear of studio heads…

… $$$.

Let us know in the comments below if you’re planning to go to theaters this weekend. What are you excited to see?