Ghostbusters 2021 weekend Nov 19-21: Afterlife $44M OW | E: $10.8m | RD: $8.1m

[poweranimals]

9 minutes ago, Eternal Legion said:

What is up with the reacts @poweranimals ?

Just kinda disappointed in the way the numbers are looking this weekend. 😂

[misterpepp]

1 hour ago, Eternal Legion said:

 

Verified selects for people who wanted to pay for the theater, but so does cinemascore. Anyway we already had an A+ this year in Summer of Soul but I’m not expecting another (though I will crack up if NWH gets there).

 

That Kendrick Brothers' Christian doc (Show Me the Father, I think it was?) apparently also got an A+ based on one of their social media posts. So that makes two I suppose.

 

I think American Underdog and/or Journal for Jordan could have a chance.

[Joyous Legion]

3 minutes ago, poweranimals said:

Just kinda disappointed in the way the numbers are looking this weekend. 😂

Ahh, gotcha. Well, maybe Fri will beat Jat’s ests by a bit, they did still have a few hours left. It’s lower than I’d hope but still running very close with TDW, which is pretty fine considering the scores.

[BadOlCatSylvester]

Afterlife is looking to be pretty frontloaded if the tracking thread is any indication. I'm thinking it does around $35M, which will please the mainstream media since it's lower than the 2016 remake they tried to prop up. The saving grace here is the far lower $75M budget which should prevent it from losing as much money as the last movie. That's still too much IMO, but I assume any future followups won't be facing this issue since the OG cast likely won't be involved anymore.

 

Make a limited series starring the new kids, Sony. Chucky had no problem transitioning into a mostly at-home property, so Ghostbusters should have a nice home at Netflix or something.

[Joyous Legion]

7 minutes ago, Eternal Legion said:

Ahh, gotcha. Well, maybe Fri will beat Jat’s ests by a bit, they did still have a few hours left. It’s lower than I’d hope but still running very close with TDW, which is pretty fine considering the scores.

In fact, even closer to tdw than I had realized. Using an 11.1 wknd est:  

 

	TDW gross	cum true FSS multi	Eternals gross	cum true FSS multi	Et/tdw cum true FSS multi
Previews	7,100,000		9,500,000
OW	85,737,841	1	71,297,219	1	1
7day	108,511,114	1.289596875	91,265,255	1.323121919	1.02599653
10day	145,097,130	1.754843829	118,115,383	1.757609562	1.001576056
14day	153,720,821	1.864507203	124,992,163	1.868889327	1.002350285
17day	167,917,123	2.04503482	136,092,163	2.04850906	1.001698866
Final	206,362,140	2.533921805

[Porthos]

Sooo... We getting a CinemaScore for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, or nah?

 

(yes, I just checked)

Edited November 20, 2021 by Porthos

[Spidey Freak]

1 hour ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

Make a limited series starring the new kids, Sony. Chucky had no problem transitioning into a mostly at-home property, so Ghostbusters should have a nice home at Netflix or something.

 

Yeah, GB works better as an episodic show with a monster of the week format. That Mackenna Grace kid has already been on The Haunting of Hill House and played Little Sabrina for Netflix so they can make her their next Millie Bobby Brown.

[Krissykins]

$16.5m Friday seems fine (in addition to Charlie, EmpireCity also confirmed on Twitter that it’s higher than Gitesh’s $15m number).

 

Obviously that’s more frontloaded than the last film, but it maybe had earlier start times and this had Wednesday sneaks included too.  This one also, of course, has the major benefit of the original cast and no online hate. 

[Maggie]

Man, King Richard was the usual sacharine Will Smith movie, glossing over facts and making it feel good. I don't know much about the real Richard, but the movie is so corny. What a disappointment. I was all for Will winning the Oscar this year, but it's an okay performance in a mediocre movie

[CJohn]

Hilarious that people were thinking 50M or some shit for this. It is opening higher than what I expected considering how weak the brand is and the raging pandemic going.

[wildphantom]

1 hour ago, CJohn said:

Hilarious that people were thinking 50M or some shit for this. It is opening higher than what I expected considering how weak the brand is and the raging pandemic going.

me too. I hoped for around 40. 
That said, word of mouth should ultimately propel it to a nice final total. Makes a difference when your not so anticipated movie is received really well by audiences. 
 

Its choice of release date might end up being a masterstroke. 

[von Kenni]

1 hour ago, CJohn said:

Hilarious that people were thinking 50M or some shit for this. It is opening higher than what I expected considering how weak the brand is and the raging pandemic going.

 

Yeah, the pandemic effects for sure. IMHO the brand can be viewed both weak and strong.

 

It is strong in the way how it has permeated through the pop culture since the eighties through reruns, music (perhaps the biggest single contributor), video games, parodies, and crossovers. The foundation is at least strongish for certain demos that are enough to propel it for a bigger OW that we are now seeing.

 

However, the true strength is measured in how you can activate it. One external challenge might be that the kids that saw the original OGs (or the reruns in the early 90s) when they were 10-15 yrs old might just be past the time now that their kids would be the same age range and be good for the GA Stanger Things kids vibe to make it a family event. The kids of the OG kids might already be college age so GA is 5-10 years late in that sense. Though the adults that enjoyed GA might have grandchildren that would work with GA, but that's a small demo that pandemic hits the hardest.

 

Also, there's the question how well the slower pacing of GA works for kids today. For most, probably not so well, but I think there are still plenty of kids that haven't grown up their faces glued to the screens and watching hyperactive cartoons and videos all day long. IMDB ratings distribution shows one anomaly: 18-29-yr-olds males are not so much into GA as the rest which fits into all this since they have probably the weakest brand potential for this.

 

Still I think GA has plenty of brand foundation to build on but it all comes to how you trigger and wake that up through marketing. You need longer timeframe actions to do that than the normal movie marketing campaigns. Dune had the same challenge too. It's brand foundation was strong too but harder to trigger because I think much of it was more hidden in the pop-culture and outside pop-culture in the first place. GA has it easier, yet still it's a challenging task to do.

 

The marketing content, familiar things, vibes, etc. looks well done with GA but I wonder, and I don't know, how they managed to reach the right demos the right way and multiple times enough to ignite that hidden brand influence in plain sight. The G2016 debacle made the use of traditional medias, earned PR, much less usable and studios still (maybe MCU is an exception) are pretty bad in using more modern marketing channels in creative and data-driven ways.

 

I think it's almost a miracle they pulled this off so well as it seems. I think it comes to the love that was put in from all the people participating in GA that made it possible. It seems to really resonate with the audiences. However, that can give it great legs but doesn't by itself guarantee a stellar OW.

 

$40m+ would be a great result, $35m+ a good one, $30m+ meh, and under that another one bites the dust.

Edited November 20, 2021 by von Kenni

[Maggie]

So, the fans rushed out to see it first and the general public is not that interested.

[titanic2187]

13 minutes ago, Maggie said:

So, the fans rushed out to see it first and the general public is not that interested.

More like 2016 version leave a scar on the brand and dilute the novelty of the "coming back". 2016 version was not a terrible movie but the controversy and the politic surrounding the movie was so toxic that it impair the brand goodwill. Much like Terminator TDF, all terrible sequels have permanently hurt the subsequent attempt of revival no matter how they tried.      

[BadOlCatSylvester]

7 minutes ago, Maggie said:

So, the fans rushed out to see it first and the general public is not that interested.

Spot on. Which is also why I don't think it'll have much staying power, or at least as much as people here are hoping for. It'll likely open in the 30s and end at around $80M-$90M, which the best it can hope for at this point. General audiences are simply done with this IP after the 2016 remake, and there's nothing Sony can do about that.

 

Significantly lowering the budget and catering mostly to the diehards, who do still want more busting, was a stroke of genius on Sony's part though. They should double down on that the next time they decide to make use of this property. Not everything needs to be four quadrant you know.

[Maggie]

3 minutes ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

Spot on. Which is also why I don't think it'll have much staying power, or at least as much as people here are hoping for. It'll likely open in the 30s and end at around $80M-$90M,

Agreed about the legs. I don't see a great multiplier for it, either. It's just a movie for the fanbase. Good they kept the budget in check

[Nikostar]

26 minutes ago, Maggie said:

So, the fans rushed out to see it first and the general public is not that interested.

Exactly and the reviews did not help much as well.

[Maggie]

11 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

More like 2016 version leave a scar on the brand and dilute the novelty of the "coming back". 2016 version was not a terrible movie but the controversy and the politic surrounding the movie was so toxic that it impair the brand goodwill. Much like Terminator TDF, all terrible sequels have permanently hurt the subsequent attempt of revival no matter how they tried.      

True, that's why only hardcore fans are interested in this brand. As i said, i don't see good legs for it.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Maggie

[EmpireCity]

$16.5m confirmed.  

 

Let's see how Saturday numbers look.  WOM hasn't had a chance to kick in yet and this could be the first Saturday that we get a return to the usual bump.  

 

This one isn't over yet.  Stay tuned.  

[EmpireCity]

3 minutes ago, Maggie said:

True, that's why only hardcore fans are interested in this brand. As i said, i don't see good legs for it.

 

You are going to be wrong on that, simply because there is NOTHING to get in the way of it from now until Dec. 16th and it skews to families.