Monday Box Office Report – Ghostbusters ain’t afraid of no pets… but they should be

Paul Feig’s all-female Ghostbusters opened in the US this weekend past, and despite what some would have had you believe would happen, modern society is still standing and has not been eroded to the core. What did happen though is that the supernatural comedy went on to make a tidy sum of $46 million dollars. That’s not a bad debut at all, but it’s also not great when taking the film’s steep-ish $144 million price tag into account.

However, it is the biggest domestic opening ever for Feig and star Melissa McCarthy, and judging from their past collaborations, unless this gets sabotaged by the Ghostbros, it should make its money back in its domestic run. And it’s probably going to need every cent seeing as it more than likely doesn’t have the ever more lucrative Chinese box office to bail it out if it gets into trouble.

One of the reasons why Ghostbusters probably wasn’t able to pull in more dollars – y’know, besides the hordes of people irrationally hating it before they’ve even seen it – is because of two groups of animated animals. The first group comes from The Secret Life of Pets which continues to be a massive surprise hit for Universal, with the animated family comedy picking up $50.5 million in its second week, retaining the top spot in the US and forcing Ghostbusters to have to settle for second place. After two weeks, The Secret Life of Pets is already sitting on an impressive $203.1 million domestic total.

As good as that figure is though, it’s nothing compared to that of Finding Dory (the aforementioned other group of animated animals, in case you were wondering). Pixar’s sequel to Finding Nemo could only earn a 4th place worthy $11 million this weekend past, but that latest contribution was enough to eclipse Shrek 2′s figures and give it the highest domestic total for an animated movie ever. Its domestic total is currently sitting on $445.5 million. Globally that figure rises to an even more impressive $721.7 million.

The only other event on the charts this weekend was the debut of the Bryan Cranston led The Infiltrator. Unfortunately, the true-story drug drama was seemingly not able to infiltrate too many people’s wallets, as it could only muster up $5.287 million. It is only playing in 1,600 cinemas though – as opposed to the 4, 381 of The Secret Life of Pets – so it does have that going against it.

Here’s what is happening on the rest of the US top 10 charts:

• 01. The Secret Life of Pets – $50.5 million (LW:1)
• 02. Ghostbusters – $46 million (NE)
• 03. The Legend of Tarzan – $11.1 million (LW: 2)
• 04. Finding Dory – $11 million (LW: 3)
• 05. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates – $7.5 million (LW: 4)
• 06. The Purge: Election Year – $6 million (LW: 5)
• 07. Central Intelligence – $5.3 million (LW: 6)
• 08. The Infiltrator – $5.2 million (NE)
• 09. The BFG – $3.7 million (LW: 7)
• 10. Independence Day: Resurgence  – $3.4 million (LW: 8)

At first glance, it may look like Blake Lively’s shark thriller The Shallows won’t be taking a huge bite out of the US box office as it’s now dropped out of the Top 10 after just 4 weeks. However, the Jaume Collet-Sera directed thriller only has a production budget of $17 million, which means that it’s current domestic total of $51.3 million is already a huge success. And it still needs to open in several international markets, including our own!

(LW = Last Week, NE = New Entry)

 

Last Updated: July 18, 2016