What Are We to Make of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Box Office-Wise?

Boxoffice Pro's last long-range forecast projected a gross in the $85-$126 million range, with which its final opening weekend forecast of $40 million was consistent.

It is worth remembering that this works out to, even at the high end, less than the much-mocked 2016 Ghostbusters remake made even before inflation ($128 million).

If we think in terms of inflation-adjusted numbers, it is much less than the 2016 movie made ($166 million in February 2024 prices), while that in its turn was much less than the gross of Ghostbusters II back in 1989 (which movie's $112 million take equals $281 million in today's money), a movie that was considered a disappointment at the time--because the original had made so much more (the first Ghostbusters pulling in $243 million, equivalent to a $729 million gross today, so that Ghostbusters II made only a little over one-third of what the first movie did).

The result is that if we look at the matter dispassionately we see Hollywood yet again venturing far, far down the path of diminishing returns with an '80s-era franchise in the usual, desperate and shameless, manner--the movie much more Indiana Jones 5 than Top Gun 2, and in the process extending the pattern of failure for such films seen last year.

Given all that the press and the chatter seem relatively upbeat.