In a strategic and valiant effort, Sony’s GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE led the box office with $44M on this pre-Thanksgiving weekend, coming in at the higher end of most projections. Unfortunately, this year’s take is massively short of the big opener from the same weekend in 2019, FROZEN 2 with its three-day total of $128M. KING RICHARD, this weekend’s only other wide release, rang up a dismal $5.7M to come in fourth place among all films. ETERNALS came in second place with $10.8M, a drop of 60%. CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG finished third with $8.1M. All pictures in theatres this weekend are projected to gross $83.8M.
Up until this week, box office revenue from the fourth quarter of 2021 had been tracking at 75% of the same period in 2019. This success was fueled by a run of four consecutive weekends in October with new movies producing $40M+ in their opening weekend, and by the $70M debut of ETERNALS on the weekend of November 5-7. It was also a sharp increase from the 51% comparison produced during the second quarter.
However, the industry has now hit a speed bump on its road to recovery, with a weekend that produced only $83.8M for all pictures, compared with $203M for the same week in 2019. The Thanksgiving period for moviegoing which kicks off on the Friday before Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the strongest weeks of the year. For the five prior to the pandemic (2015-2019), this week has averaged out to be the fifth biggest of the year.
While studio execs are well aware of this history, they have not offered a lineup that matches the importance of the date. Three new movies will open on Wednesday – ENCANTO, HOUSE OF GUCCI, and RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY. Taken together, all three are expected to gross only the same amount that KNIVES OUT produced in its opening 5 days, beginning on the day before Thanksgiving in 2019.
This leaves GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE virtually alone to compete with the much more commercially viable FROZEN 2. One can’t help but think that this shortfall could have been offset by opening NO TIME TO DIE or DUNE on the holiday week, or by maintaining TOP-GUN: MAVERICK which had at one point been slotted into this very attractive release week. As a result, look for moviegoing next week to be way off its traditional mark.