Saturday AM Update: Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife is beating its $30M-$35M industry expectations, with an expected $40.5M opening weekend after a $16.5M Friday, which includes Thursday previews. Of that figure, PLF screens and Imax are driving 35% of the gross for the Sony movie.
Sony
Box Office analytics firm EntTelligence calculated that 1.25M people have seen Ghostbusters: Afterlife since its Thursday preview, 25% of that audience watching the movie on its first night in theaters. Close to a third of the movie’s opening day business came after 8PM, which means it’s a big matinee driver, an indicator that families are seeing it. According to Comscore and Screen Engine’s PostTrak, close to a third of the audience was comprised of a family adult and child under 12. PostTrak parents gave the movie five stars, while kids under 12 gave it 4 1/2 stars.
Whether or not this sequel goes higher hinges on even more families coming out today. Word of mouth is already great for this sequel, which you’ll hear many Ghostbusters fans say, finally delivers. Ghostbusters: Afterlife received an A- CinemaScore, slightly higher than Paul Feig’s all-femme 2016 Ghostbusters, which was graded with a B+. PostTrak has a good 69% definite recommend for the film, which is higher than the 57% of that Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy, and Leslie Jones ensemble.
Overall, general audiences gave Ghostbusters: Afterlife four stars, with an 82% positive. Those in distribution also like to look toward the Rotten Tomatoes’ audience meter, and that’s at 95% off 1,000 verified ratings. Of all the demos giving Ghostbusters: Afterlife its best grades on PostTrak were the 45-54 bunch (who turned out at 11% ), who gave the pic a 90% grade. They were kids when the first 1984 movie came out. All of this is enough to proton-boost Ghostbusters: Afterlife through the holiday week into the Black Friday frame, especially as kids are increasingly off from school prior to Thanksgiving, and completely off for the holiday and Friday. Already, PostTrak reports that 61% of Ghostbusters: Afterlife‘s audience bought their ticket the day of, a great sign of walk-up business.
Sony knew they had a hit on their hands with Ghostbusters: Afterlife and weren’t afraid to shout out to the world about it. A film with a fresh face cast outside of Paul Rudd (the original castmembers in the film were kept quiet in the marketing for some time) needs much word of mouth, and Sony launched Ghostbusters: Afterlife at CinemaCon, which truly impressed circuit bosses, who enjoyed the Steven Spielberg-like tale. Sony followed this up with a surprise preview of the sequel at New York Comic-Con, following a Q&A with Jason and Ivan Reitman and the cast, and that received a rapturous response:
I haven’t had an experience like last night since the Juno premiere at TIFF https://t.co/3LZ5PdloX4
— Jason Reitman (@JasonReitman) October 9, 2021
Kids under 12 gave Ghostbusters: Afterlife an 88% positive rating and a 55% definite recommend. Feig’s previous Ghostbusters drew females, and the Reitman-directed sequel here brought in 60% guys, 40% women. An older-leaning audience here for Ghostbusters: Afterlife with 72% over 25.
In addition, the prime moviegoing 18-34 demo only repped 44% of the crowd. Those over 35 repped 47%, which is very encouraging. Further broken down, men over 25 repped 43% of all Ghostbusters: Afterlife ticket buyers (grade 85%), women over 25 repped 29% (88% grade), men under 25 were 17% (67% grade) while women under 25 numbered 11% (75% grade). Diversity draw was 48% Caucasian, a strong Latino and Hispanic turnout of 25%, 11% African American and 9% Asian.
Warner Bros.’ King Richard isn’t doing so well, significantly below its $10M expectation, with an estimated $6.5M for a fourth place rank. This isn’t shocking: If you’re an older moviegoer, you’re going to see vintage cinema brand Ghostbusters with your family, not to mention the continued sluggishness of older audiences during the pandemic when it comes to more serious fare.
Furthermore, it’s a long movie at 2 hours and 18 minutes, which means less showtimes; not to mention it’s a lot to ask of an older audience that’s cautious about watching movies in theaters during the pandemic. Oh, yes, and the HBO day-and-date of it all. Still, with all these older-skewing awards-bait movies this year, their fate will not be written at the box office. EntTelligence reports that there were 3.5x more programmed seats for Ghostbusters: Afterlife than King Richard. This can be attributed to more showtimes and larger auditoriums being given to the Jason Reitman movie.
Despite the small turnout, King Richard received an A CinemaScore from the audience, with a 94% positive on PostTrak and a huge 89% recommend. Those who showed up were 58% female and 77% over 25, with 39% over 45 years old. African American audiences repped 41% of the audience, followed by 37% Caucasian, 12% Asian/other, and 10% Hispanic and Latino. With Black Friday traditionally one of the biggest moviegoing days of the year, let’s see how King Richard shakes out by next Sunday.
Disney/Marvel’s Eternals holds bragging rights for a second place rank in its third weekend, earning $3.07M yesterday, on its way to an estimated $10.8M, -60% for a running total by the end of Sunday of $135.8M. Paramount’s second weekend of eOne’s Clifford the Big Red Dog is expected to be down 52% for $8M in third, and a $33.5M running total by the end of Sunday. The pic is also available in homes on Paramount+.
Top 11 chart for the weekend of Nov. 19-21, 2021
1.) Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Sony) 4,315 theaters, Fri $16.5M, 3-day: $40.5M/Wk 1
2.) Eternals (Dis) 4,055 theaters (-35), Fri $3.07M (-61%), 3-day $10.8M (-60%), Total $135.8M/Wk 3
3.) Clifford the Big Red Dog (Par) 3,628 (-72) theaters, Fri $2M (-53%), 3-day $8M (52%), Total $33.5M/Wk 2
4.) King Richard (WB) 3,302 theaters, Fri $1.9M, 3-day $6.5M/Wk 1
5.) Dune (WB/Leg) 2,467 (-815) theaters, Fri $885K (-46%), 3-day $3M (-45%) Total $98.2M/Wk 5
6.) Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony) 2,230 (-308) theaters, Fri $725K (-30%), 3-day $2.65M (-32%), Total $206.3M/Wk 8
Pablo Larrain/Neon/Courtesy Everett Collection
7.) No Time to Die (UAR) 2,407 (-460) theaters, Fri $791K (-43%), 3-day $2.6M (-42%), Total $154.6M/Wk 7
8.) The French Dispatch (Sea) 805 (-420) theaters, Fri $294K (-46%), 3-day $992K (-44%), Total $13.3M/Wk 5
9.) Ron’s Gone Wrong (20th/Dis) 1,520 (-910) Fri $210K (-62%), 3-day $861K (-61%), Total $22M/Wk 5
10.) Belfast (Foc) 584 (+2) theaters, Fri $270K (-58%), 3-day $830K (-53%), Total $3.3M/Wk 2
11.) Spencer (NEON) Fri $228K (-53%), 3-day $678K (-55%), Total $6.1M/Wk 3
Friday AM: Sony’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife is off to a promising start at the pre-Thanksgiving box office with $4.5M, ahead of Sony’s 2016 all-femme reboot which posted a Friday of $3.5M. While Sony was projecting $27M-$28M, and the industry higher $30M-$35M, Thursday night’s ticket sales (which started at 4PM at 3,450 locations) puts the Jason Reitman-directed feature in a position to potentially excel both those projections. Any added propulsion here at the box office is off pure word of mouth. The sequel is booked at 4,300 theaters.
The previous Paul Feig version of Ghostbusters went on to earn a $17.1M Friday, including previews, a $46M domestic opening and finaled at 2.8x multiple off a B+ CinemaScore with $128.3M. That audience score was down from the 1989 Ivan Reitman-directed sequel Ghostbusters 2 which had an A-. Ghostbusters: Afterlife will have all the Imax and PLF theaters this weekend at its service.
In regards to promotion, social analytics corp RelishMix reports that Ghostbusters: Afterlife dropped its first trailer on Dec. 9, 2019 and began to build momentum to the July 2020 date only to hit the Covid pause button.
For the next full year — until this past April — the studio dropped weekly clips onto the movie’s Facebook pages as the industry re-set. Afterlife, has 105 videos for 7.6M predominately organic views “which is strong” says RelishMix.
On YouTube, 11 videos reposted at a viral rate of 41:1 have amassed 94.3M views “with an exceptional load of review spots.” Sony’s 40.9M social media universe is cross-promoted with the movie at 3.2M fans and Playstation at 104.2 fans — which are all rolled into the sequel’s total social media universe of 275.6M.
Conversation for Ghostbusters: Afterlife leans positive “with enthusiasm for new cast members Finn Wolfhard and Paul Rudd — and joyous references of the original from 1984 with the return of Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts,” says RelishMix. “The second redo is intensely nostalgic for fans and their memories of New York in the 1980s and feeling that Ghostbusters are here to save the day.
Wolfhard fans are pointing out the obvious connection when the cast of Stranger Things dressed up as Ghostbusters in an episode. Gozer the Gozerian and the Stay Puff (sic.) man along with chatter about the video game also leads to cross promotions which are seen within the PlayStation universe. Skeptics touch on the first reboot from 2016 and now, with a kids driven episode and how that will play.”
The pic’s social media stars include Dan Aykroyd with 1.8M fans, McKenna Grace at 1.6M. and Wolfhard with 20.9M on Instagram. Jason Reitman counts over 228K between his Instagram and Twitter handles.
Grace with the Ghostbusters:
Also opening today is the Warner Bros. Richard Williams biopic King Richard about Venus and Serena Williams’ father, in 3,250 theaters and on HBO Max. The pic is hoping to lob a $10M start.
Disney’s Eternals ended its second week with an estimated $33.7M in first place in 4,090 theaters, after a $1.3M Thursday, -19% from Wednesday, putting the MCU title at $124.9M. The movie is expected to ease 50% in weekend 3 with around $13M for a No. 2 slot, that is unless King Richard greatly overperforms.
Paramount’s theatrical release of Clifford the Big Red Dog, which is also available in homes on Paramount+, saw a $655K Thursday at 3,700 sites, -8% from Wednesday and a running total of $25.4M. Clifford looks to be at least 40% from its three-day of $16.6M with just under $10M. Clifford‘s last seven days at the B.O. came in at $19.8M.
Warner Bros./Legendary’s Dune, which is in its final weekend on HBO Max before it’s exclusive to exhibition in its second month, continues to hold, notching third place with an estimated $7.5M fourth week in 3,282 movie theaters, an estimated $450K Thursday, and a running total just over $95M. The pic will clear the century mark at the domestic box office this week, Warner’s second to do so during the pandemic after Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong.
In fourth is UAR/MGM’s No Time to Die, which is also in homes on PVOD, which earned $385K yesterday at 2,867, -2%, for a $6.1M sixth week, and a running total in the U.S. and Canada of $152M.
Fifth place belongs to Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, booked at 2,538 with a Thursday estimated at $250K, off 7% from Wednesday, for a 7th week of $5M and running total of $203.7M.