Oh Neat, Another Man is Trying to Kill “Ghostbusters” Before Its Second Weekend

Despite the Man Baby Crusade to derail the powerhouse that is Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones in the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters, the film made $46 million dollars at US and Canadian box offices in its first weekend, making it the highest live-action comedy opening since Pitch Perfect 2 in 2015. It’s an opening weekend pull that nestled snugly in the middle of Sony’s $40 to 50 million dollar projections, and earned McCarthy as well as director Paul Feig their largest debut. Sony executives have been vocal about their support for the film and their excitement for its – by their own standards – success. Moviegoers that were primed to like it don’t just like it; they’re losing their minds over it on social media.

And yet Jeff Bock, box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations, is VERY WORRIED about the Ghostbuster legacy. He spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about it in an article yesterday:

“I know Sony is crowing about it being a great opening for a comedy, but the entire Ghostbusters legacy is what’s at stake here, and it’s not looking good. This was supposed to be a blockbuster.”

THE ENTIRE GHOSTBUSTERS LEGACY IS AT STAKE HERE. You know, how it was when 1989’s Ghosterbusters II that (adjusted for inflation) had a similar opening of $56 million its first weekend. Also if we’re talking about legacies here, people were perfectly fine letting Val Kilmer play Batman only for it to have four more reincarnations after the fact, not to mention the FIVE Spiderman movies packed into just 12 years with back-to-back actors who had the combined charisma of a baguette, so the legacy’s fine. *Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron voice* The legacy does not exist.

He continues: “Curiosity played a big factor in the $46 million debut and, as such, I doubt it will hold like a typical Feig comedy.”

Curiosity! Not genuine excitement, as I’m assuming we’re not framing this through the perspective of the women who made up 56% of the audience this weekend. Sorry, but the only women that are curious about this movie are straight women after seeing Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann. No, I think the curiosity Bock is talking about is coming from the same condescending riser where men show up to see how the girls fare!

But people don’t pay $17 for a movie because they are curious, they pay 17 whole dollars because they want to see the movie. Those who don’t, blog about it. Or write racist tweets about it.

Then he says, “Sony definitively did not launch a franchise, and seemingly they might be the only ones that don’t know it. I know it’s been a tough road for them, and I feel for them.”

“I feel for them.” These poor executives in charge of these poor women. You know what Bock could do instead of prepping the burial site for Ghostbusters at every turn? I don’t know, give it more than a week? Remind himself of his own analysis of how critical opinion influences a film’s future, specifically films like this one? Earlier this year he told CNBC, “Critical opinion can have a significant impact on a film’s success if it targets a specific genre that is susceptible to reviews.” And, no, Bock isn’t technically a movie critic, but quotes like, “It isn’t looking good,” and, “I doubt it will hold,” about a film that has done exactly what it was expected to are critiques that are a part of the same conversation.

Bock keeps going: “The more I ponder it, the worse this scenario plays out.”

Okay, guy, relax. Sony, the people literally in charge of Ghostbusters’ legacy, already think it’s ripe for a sequel and again you’re already angling to kill it. But I guess that’s the point! If it’s a ghost then maybe a man can come by and suck it away into a box forever.

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Erin

Los Angeles based writer. Let's keep it clean out there!

Erin has written 208 articles for us.

39 Comments

  3. oh hi sexism how are you remember when i was growing up and i thought you were over? hahaha.

  4. This whole Ghostbusters “controversy” has only highlighted just how fragile some of these men truly are. They have been throwing dramatic temper tantrums about this for months on every messageboard, social media site, and Youtube video with every excuse in the book about why a female fronted Ghostbusters has destroyed their childhoods even before their was an actual trailer for it while accusing women of being whiners and victims for disagreeing with them. Oh, the irony. I bet half of these people don’t actually give a shit about the original films, they just want something to be mad at “sjws” about. As usual.

    The height of their disgusting behavior was the unbelievably racist harassment of Leslie Jones on Twitter yesterday to the point where she couldn’t take it anymore and quit. I mean, it was REALLY BAD you guys. Even by usual white supremacist standards. Racial slurs, pictures of gorillas labelled as her, pictures of dead black bodies, creating fake accounts in her name full of homophobia, etc. And twitter didn’t lift a finger to help her out or ban accounts.

    Apparently, this was all orchestrated by a white gay conservative well-known for his racism, misogyny and islamaphobia who has yet to face any consequences.

    • A friend of mine just clued me in on this over social media and it’s completely horrifying. The ringleader cut his teeth during Gamergate. Just think, if Twitter had done a damn thing about that or about even earlier harassment campaigns focused on black women, none of this would’ve happened. Awful.

  5. “the only woman that are curious about this movie are straight women after seeing Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann.” This is glorious.

    I broke up with my girlfriend Saturday and took myself to see Ghostbusters Monday and Holtzmann assuaged any fears that maybe I just wasn’t gay enough. I’ve been riding a big queer high all day.

  7. I admit I’m not a big follower of Hollywood industry insider stuff, so I don’t really know anything more than what Google can tell me, but this brought out my inner journalist, and out of curiosity, I did a deep web search of Exhibitor Relations (i.e., all the way to the last page of results) and there is nothing in its Google results that gives me the impression that Exhibitor Relations actually matters to anyone in Hollywood except to arts and entertainment journalists looking for a low-hanging fruit “expert” who can be reached in a hurry for a sparkly set of quotes to go into a thin article citing mostly what I strongly suspect is Exhibitor Relations-provided data.

    Going through the company’s Google results, I found:

    *iterations of the company page, (with out-of-date box office stats on the front page for May, strangely), complete with tacky banner ads.

    *its Facebook page, which has daily, often provocative statements about box office receipts of recently released movies. The Facebook page is commented on by no one and is clearly there as low-hanging fruit for entertainment journalists to troll on a regular basis when they need a quick idea for an article. Also its Twitter page, which I’ll admit I didn’t bother with.

    *articles about movies and Hollywood trends from various big-name news media outlets (from Wired, Variety, BusinessInsider, New York Times, etc.) quoting Exhibitor Relations staffers – almost always the self-important-sounding Bock.

    *spammy business directories that list Exhibitor Relations with scant profiles, which in fairness, may or may not have been done with Exhibitor Relations’ consent or input. However, these profiles seem to consistently show that Exhibitor Relations is a company that has no more than 10 employees.

    While Exhibitor Relations’ website claims to provide data to the media, to film producers and studios, and I am by no means an expert in this area, after some quick research, I am highly doubtful from what I saw that this company and Mr. Bock are considered experts worth listening to by anyone in Hollywood but journalists who are lazy and in a hurry, or whose Google searches turn up Exhibitor Relations’ social media pages and don’t know better. Sadly, that means this guy (whose real agenda, honestly, probably isn’t specifically anti-feminist so much as it is self-promotion through overaggrandized trashing anything that’ll get him attention) gets a disporportionate voice.

    But hopefully it also means that no one in Hollywood with actual power to influence anything about Lady-Ghostbusters’ future is listening, and Ghostbusters’ numbers can simply speak for themselves.

  8. GHOSTBUSTERS DAY IS MY FAVORITE DAY
    KRISTIN WIIG IS MY SECOND FAVORITE LESBIAN BUZZKILL GHOSTBUSTER NAMED ERIN

  9. So the other day I was like “you know what, after I move I’d love some comfy pjs that look like the ghostbusters uniform. I’d feel kickass and comfortable and this is all the yes”.

    I found a pair with the symbol but thats not what I want. I then stumbled on the ghostbusters halloween costumes for women and… I pretty much went “oh… thats probably why manbabies are crying”

    Its not just the fact they are women, they aren’t women dressed and visually dissected for them.

    • Someone made a great point on twitter that if the four leads in Ghostbusters looked similar to this then all these fanboys wouldn’t have been smearing this movie for as long as they have. They don’t hate the movie because it has female leads. They hate it because it doesn’t star 4 Megan Fox types in similar clothing. Case in point, these pissbabies aren’t anywhere near as upset about the Ninja Turtle reboot bastardizing their childhood but their are endless articles and YT videos about this Ghostbusters movie.

    • yesyesyes we’re no longer for consumptions. i can’t wait to wear a baggy beige jumpsuit for halloween or actually we should just start wearing them now

  12. I know that the amount of money the movie makes is more important than anything, I’ve already watched it twice and will be going a third time this week, but we should really be up voting it anywhere we can. IMDB/Rotten Tomatoes (Potatoes,lol)/etc;

  14. It was hilarious. Everyone in the theater loved this when I saw it. It had a huge break out star thing going. Reviews are very good. It made more in the first week than the gdp of some countries. All the original cast supported it by doing nice cameos. The executive producer was Dan Akryod.

    Yet somehow it defiled the original and ruined childhoods.

    Now, that’s multitasking!

  15. I loved the movie, except for one small thing. I would have liked to see a connection to the original ghostbusters. Instead of starting from scratch I would have liked to have seen a scene where someone was trying to find the original ghostbusters and they found out they are out of business. Why because they caught all the ghosts. And they had no work. They guys went their separate ways and NYC had no ghostbusters. Thus the girls take on the new persona of the new ghostbusters. Why because the owner of the mansion couldn’t find anyone in paranormal studies.

  17. I was a huge fan of the original Ghostbusters. It came out when I was 7, and I wanted to be a Ghostbuster. I loved this movie. And based on the reactions of the people in the theatre I was in, so did 300 other people.

    I went with a friend, and when the credits rolled, the first thing she said was “there’s going to be a sequel right?”
    I’ll be seeing it again this weekend.

  19. Taking my (straight, male) POF date to see it this weekend. How he reacts may determine whether or not there’s a future date.

  20. He does make a valid point though…. the legacy is in real trouble….

    This is obviously a part of THE SUPER SECRET HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA!!!!!

    (To empower woman and show young girls that cool and sexy is being yourself, and not needing a man to rescue you.)

    This movie would have ment a lot to me as a young queer child. I’m glad it exists today.

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