No snowstorm or sour reviews stood in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire‘s path this weekend, as the Gil Kenan-directed, Jason Reitman-produced sequel minted a $45.2M opening after a nice spike on Saturday from families.
Yesterday came in at $16.8M, 5% ahead of Friday/previews’ $16M. If the numbers hold up, that’s the second-best start ever for a Ghostbusters’ movie after the 2016 female ensemble of Kirsten Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon.
The domestic opening of the fifth movie takes the entire Ghostbusters franchise, per Sony, past $1 billion. I understand studio reports had the franchise through four films at $985M, a result that’s higher than Box Office Mojo. Mojo’s numbers on overseas are off on the first 1984 film.
Foreign for Frozen Empire was $16.4M from 7,500+ screens in 25 markets, bringing the global start here to $61.6M on the $100M production.
The opening is solid news, as some exhibitors feared that the movie was going to collapse into the high $30M range based on their presales, which were significantly off from Kung Fu Panda 4. However, Sony’s marketing team got the sequel past the finish line as the brand is a cherished and a vital one for the studio.
Still, not to pour cold water on Sony’s success this weekend, but that B+ CinemaScore and 84% Rotten Tomatoes audience score plus bad reviews at 43% should not be ignored by the studio if they’re thinking about making another movie. This goody goody family vibe for the franchise was adorable in Afterlife, but it’s clear die-hard fans and critics want a return to form with wall-to-wall humor, not just lore and great VFX. This was attempted with 2016’s all-femme Ghostbusters with Paul Feig. However, the filmmaker’s Bridesmaids and Spy are comedy Godfathers by comparison to his go-round with the Ivan Reitman franchise.
I understand that Feig and McCarthy had a push-and-pull on that movie: He wanted more laughs, she wanted more action, and a feathered fish was what came out in the wash. In its conceit, the comedy formula for Ghostbusters isn’t that impossible to crack: It’s Marx Brothers in a VFX event film. If you think about what is the Ghostbusters of today, why, it’s Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool. Bringing back the sarcastic magic and balls-to-the-wall of the original comedy with big comedy stars doesn’t take a nuclear ecto-plasma scientist.
EntTelligence says that Frozen Empire drew 3.3M admissions and drove 42% of the weekend’s foot traffic, followed by Dune Part Two at 17% and Kung Fu Panda 4 at 15%.
Evidence of the family turnout is also shown in EntTelligence stats, which reports that 54% of Frozen Empire‘s ticket buyers came before 5PM on Saturday. In addition, 56% of the audience was under 35, born well after the original 1984 movie.
iSpot showed a thrifty campaign spend by Sony on Frozen Empire, a little higher than what Lionsgate shelled out on Arthur the King, with a total reach of 650M impressions, led by TV spots on ABC, ESPN, CBS, NBC and Bravo (Sony went after moms there).
There was also an $80M global promotional partner campaign that included Liberty Mutual Insurance bringing marshmallow mischief, Mercedes-Benz creating a brand new ECTO-Z, Chester Cheetah putting on the Ghostbuster uniform for a limited edition “Flamin’ Hot Smoky Ghost Pepper Puff” Cheetos flavor, as well as Ghostbuster Ray Stantz giving custom voice navigation in Waze. And we’re not even counting the consumer product line here, which includes Ghostbusters goodies from Hasbro, Timberland, Wuxly, Dark Horse Comics, Funko, and Hot Topic.
TV spots for Frozen Empire aired on male-demo programming, i.e. NBA games, Sports Center, Men’s College Basketball, and Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Sony also went after moms watching Good Morning America. A huge plug was the NFC Championship opener, which featured Bill Murray and drew 58 million viewers, the highest-rated NFC broadcast in 10 years.
Other big sports blasts included a custom piece on NBCUniversal where the Ghostbusters are faced with their most formidable villain yet, and they need all the help they can get. When it comes to the mysterious cold front taking over NYC, they find help in Al Roker.
There was also an NHL custom AR spot that ran on TNT on March 17 and 20, showcasing the Zamboni and the sewer dragon ghost.
Also, there was a Peyton Manning “Quarter Zips” spot that ran across NBA, ESPN SC, NCAA College Basketball, March Madness, ESPN digital, NBA TV, YouTube, and social.
If you’re looking to get the kids to come out to your movie, a studio is as good as dead if they don’t target Roblox gamers, and Frozen Empire had a game interrogation whereby Easy Obby transforms into a themed course featuring a quest where players can morph into a Ghostbuster, collect Mini-Pufts throughout, and unlock character collectibles.
RelishMix reports that heading into the weekend, Frozen Empire counted a social media universe of 392.1M from Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, +28% above the mixed genre average, and 53% above Afterlife‘s SMU. Included in this mix are Sony Playstation social feeds at 115.3M, with robust pages for the franchise from 4.1M connected fans.
Part of this drive from Sony included the Snapchat AR Slimer Lens, which prompted Snapchatters to answer a video call from the Ghostbusters and chat with Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). As they chat, Snapchatters saw themselves transformed into Slimer. There was also a Ghostbusters Ghost Invasion AR experience that unleashed three ghosts into the real world, allowing fans to capture a sharable video of the ghosts for social and unlock an exclusive message from the cast.
There were also CGI Frozen landmark takeovers with iconic landmarks across the globe, including the London Tower Bridge, Sydney Harbor, and Tokyo Tower, all outfitted with freezing storm effects before unleashing an army of ghosts. Sony teamed with Adam Savage of Mythbusters and Tested (6M YouTube subscribers) who spent time on the Ghostbusters set with talent to release episodic content showcasing how to create and project ectoplasmic slime and practical effects.
Key social media collaborations with influencers, included Wolfhard and McKenna Grace chatting with @SeanDoesMagic, Bill Murray and Paul Rudd’s interview with Recess Therapy an a spotlight, with Weather Advisories’ Adam Krueger @WeatherAdam among several others.
Other big deals on social included a March 14 day with fans and the cast at the original firehouse Hook n’ Ladder in Tribeca.
Frozen Empire billboards included embellishments like mock ice growing off boards with frozen installer and glow-in-the-dark Slimer. Buses also featured a glow-in-the-dark Slimer.
Imax screens for Frozen Empire counted $1.8M in a share with Dune: Part Two, which added $4.8M to the sequel’s total, or 27% of its fourth stateside weekend. Imax and PLFs for Frozen Empire accounted for 36% of the gross. Highest theater so far this weekend for Frozen Empire is AMC NYC Lincoln Square at $84K.
All in, Imax screens for Dune: Part Two count $58.3M, for 25% of the pic’s domestic total. Imax is also driving a quarter of Dune 2‘s global gross, with the large format exhibitor alone counting $124M for the feature take of the Frank Herbert novel, the 8th highest-grossing Imax title ever.
NEON’s Immaculate came in at $5.36M after a Saturday of $2M, which was even with Friday/previews $2M. The pic was booked at 2,354 sites. True, we took Lionsgate to task last weekend for not spending enough on an A CinemaScore movie in Arthur the King, which could have found a bigger family audience as well as contribute more bucks to the continued strike-stricken theaters. However, that’s not to say that these indies aren’t making money. They are on a different business model spend than the studios. For NEON, $5M is a solid result. They are only a 55-person staff company, so overhead isn’t enormous. This was a P&A deal, and I understand marketing was in the mid-single digit spend. At the end of the day, boosted by all of Sweeney’s press, NEON will be fine on this Black Bear microbudget-financed film (under $10M).
Also, a big deal here this weekend is IFC’s The Late Night With the Devil: the movie broke records for IFC as their largest opening weekend ever at $2.833M at 1,034 locations and the largest per-theater average among the horror films opening this weekend at $2,740 PTA. Previous to that, Watcher held the biggest opening in IFC history at $862K followed by Skinamarink with $818K and then Blackberry at $801K. The David Dastmalchian starring pic also posted the biggest Thursday previews ever for IFC at $316,9K and the biggest Friday ever at $1.1M besting prior record set by Skinamarink ($376K).
Overall Saturday night was bountiful for exhibition thanks to the better-than-expected surge from Frozen Empire and stellar holds by Dune: Part Two and Kung Fu Panda 4. All in, the weekend is looking at $105.7M, +21% from last weekend, and only -9% off from the John Wick: Chapter 4 large weekend from a year ago.
1.) Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony) 4,345 theaters, Fri $16M Sat $16.8M Sun $12.3M 3-day $45.2M/Wk 1
2.) Dune: Part Two (Leg/WB) 3,437 theaters (-410), Fri $4.5M (-44%) Sat $7.7M Sun $5.4M, 3-day $17.6M (-38%)/Total $233.3M/Wk 4
3.) Kung Fu Panda 4 (Uni/DWA) 3,805 (-262) theaters, Fri $4M (-54%) Sat $7.6M Sun $5.1M, 3-day $16.8M (-44%), Total $133.2M/Wk 3
4.) Immaculate (NEON) 2,354 theaters, Fri $2M, Sat $2M Sun $1.3M 3-day $5.36M/Wk 1
5.)Arthur the King (LG) 3,003 theaters, Fri $1.1M (-61%) Sat $1.9M Sun $1.2M 3-day $4.36M (-43%), Total $14.6M/Wk 2
6.) Late Night With the Devil (IFC),1034 theaters Fri $1.1M Sat $1M Sun $733K 3-day $2.833M/Wk 1
7.) Imaginary (LG) 2,513 theaters (-605), Fri $760K Sat $1.27M Sun $765K 3-day $2.8M (-49%), Total $23.6M /Wk 3
8.) Love Lies Bleeding (A24) 1,828 theaters (+466) Fri $484K Sat $630K Sun $472K, 3-day $1.58M (-37%), Total $5.68M/Wk 3
9.) Cabrini (Angel) 1,765 (-1,085) theaters, Fri $410K Sat $576K $432K 3-day $1.4M (-50%) Total $16.1M/Wk 3
10.) Bob Marley: One Love (Par) 1,266 theaters (-1066) Fri $295K (-57%), Sat $490K, Sun $315K 3-day $1.03M (-40%), Total $95.3M/Wk 6
Holdovers
One Life (BST) 1,009 (+26) theaters, Fri $289K Sat $439 Sun $285K , 3-day $1.03M (-40%)/Total $3.4M/Wk 2
The American Society of Magical Negroes (Foc) 1,153 (+6) theaters, Fri $130K Sat $190K Sun $120K, 3-day $440K (-66%)/Total $2.2M/Wk 2