Despite Sony’s optimism upon the release of its rebooted “Ghostbusters” movie back in July, it’s looking more and more unlikely that the film will get a sequel.
When the all-female reboot hit theaters, Sony’s president of worldwide distribution said of a sequel, “While nothing has been officially announced yet, there’s no doubt in my mind it will happen.”
However, the financials of the situation make that difficult. “Ghostbusters” has earned south of $180 million at the global box office, including $117 million domestic, according to The Hollywood Reporter. While the film has yet to open in a few markets (France, Japan, Mexico), it seems unlikely that it will reach $225 million. Considering the film’s inflated $144 million production budget and significant marketing costs, Sony needed to reach at least $300 million to make a small profit.
All told, Sony is looking at a $70 million loss for “Ghostbusters.” While it isn’t the only studio to fall flat in this summer’s weak summer season, that kind of underperformance doesn’t bode well for the future of “Ghostbusters.”
“Ghostubsters is on ice until further notice,” box-office analyst Jeff Bock said. “I just can’t fathom the creative talents behind it — [Paul] Feig, [Melissa] McCarthy, [Kristen] Wiig, etc. — slogging out another one when the reception to the first one was so mediocre.”
Sony is shrugging off the potential loss in public, claiming that additional revenue streams such as merchandising and theme park rides are helping with the bottom line.
“This loss calculation is way off,” Sony’s rep said. “With multiple revenue streams, including consumer products, gaming, location-based entertainment, continued international rollout, and huge third-party promotional partnerships that mitigated costs, the bottom line, even before co-financing, is not remotely close to that number.”