Summary

  • Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire surpasses $150 million at the global box office after its fourth weekend.
  • The movie is the sixth 2024 release to pass the $150 million milestone.
  • Despite its success, the film may need to reach $200 million or more to break even due to its $100 million budget.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has passed a major global box office milestone. The new movie is the fifth theatrical installment in the franchise and a direct follow-up to 2021's Afterlife, a legacy sequel that brought back the original characters after the 2016 reboot introduced a separate universe. Frozen Empire follows an ice-cold supernatural menace threatening New York City, forcing the surviving veteran Ghostbusters (and their former secretary Janine) to once again team up with the new characters from Afterlife to defeat it.

Per Variety, the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire box office has reached a total of $160 million worldwide at the end of its fourth weekend in theaters, passing the important $150 million milestone. It has become the sixth 2024 release to do so, behind The Beekeeper, Bob Marley: One Love, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kung Fu Panda 4, and Dune: Part Two. However, its $100 million budget likely places its break-even point at $200 million or more, so it still has a way to go in order to earn a profit.

How Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Compares To The Rest Of The Franchise

The Ghostbusters Movies Are Showing Diminishing Returns

While the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire release has passed a major milestone, it is still suffering mightily at the box office. Without counting for the significant inflation over the 40 years between the original movie and the new sequel, Frozen Empire is still the lowest-grossing movie of the entire franchise worldwide, in addition to struggling to meet its break-even point. Below, see how every movie in the franchise so far has performed compared to their budget:

Title

Reported Budget

Worldwide Box Office

Ghostbusters (1984)

$25-30 million

$295.6 million

Ghostbusters II (1989)

$30-40 million

$215.5 million

Ghostbusters (2016)

$144 million

$229 million

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

$75 million

$203.5 million

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

$100 million

$160 million+

Each era of the franchise has so far shown diminishing returns. While Afterlife's performance may have been impacted by an unpredictable, pandemic-depressed box office in 2021, its performance failed to justify the expansive budget of Frozen Empire. Although the new movie is still nowhere near the huge price tag that sank the 2016 remake despite having the second-best box office of all five Ghostbusters movies, a $25 million increase to the budget was a risk that so far hasn't paid off.

It remains to be seen how Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire performs worldwide by the end of its box office run. However, it seems unlikely that it will become a huge success even if it does end up making a profit. The overall trend of the box office seems to suggest that a $50 million sequel could potentially become a success should the franchise continue in the near future, but the odds of that happening seem much less likely in the wake of these numbers.

Source: Variety