Paul Feigs comedy reboot launches with underwhelming number, while The Secret Life of Pets wags its tail in first place
Paul Feigs all-female reboot of Ghostbusters has failed to top the US box office with a lukewarm $46m opening weekend.
The comedy horror, starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, will need to impress international audiences to warrant its $144m budget. Analysts suggest that it will need to make around $300m globally to break even. After almost two years of online anger from fans over the choice to cast four women in the lead roles, the audience was 57% female a high number for a blockbuster.
Its also envisioned as the start of a new franchise with Sony promising more films to come.
Were ecstatic with this opening. We have successfully restarted an important brand, said Josh Greenstein, Sonys worldwide marketing and distribution president. We have lots of room to run in the coming weeks as the big comedy in the marketplace.
But it wasnt enough to unseat The Secret Life of Pets which made $50.6m in its second weekend. The Universal animation has already passed the $200m mark. Its a strong summer for cartoons at the box office with Finding Dory becoming the highest-grossing animated film of all time, beating previous record-holder Shrek 2.
Elsewhere, Bryan Cranston drama The Infiltrator opened with a decent $6.7m from just 1,601 screens while Woody Allens period comedy Caf Society scored the strongest screen average of the year, making $361,000 from just five locations.
