Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Box Office Passes Huge Domestic Milestone In Week 5

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has surpassed a major domestic box office milestone. The new movie is a followup to the 2021 legacy sequel Afterlife, in which the extended family of the late Egon Spengler reunite with the surviving Ghostbusters team to help defeat a new supernatural threat that has descended upon New York City. The returning legacy cast includes Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman, Dan Aykroyd as Dr. Ray Stantz, Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore, and Annie Potts as Janine Melnitz.

Per Deadline, the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire box office is projected to take in a 3-day total of $4 million in the domestic market by the end of its fifth weekend in theaters. This will push its cumulative domestic total to $102.5 million, passing the important $100 million milestone. It is the fourth movie of 2024 to hit that domestic milestone so far, behind Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kung Fu Panda 4, and Dune: Part Two. This news comes after it passed the $150 million milestone globally the previous weekend.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Is Still Struggling To Make A Profit

The Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Budget Is Reportedly $100 Million

While the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire release hitting this box office milestone is admirable, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the movie is performing well in and of itself. The title comes with a large price tag, as its reported production budget is $100 million. As theaters keep half the money from ticket sales, a movie generally needs to earn twice its budget to be considered profitable, meaning that Frozen Empire‘s break-even point is likely $200 million or more without factoring in its presumably substantial marketing costs.

Frozen Empire is likewise suffering in comparison with the other Ghostbusters movies. Without adjusting for inflation, it is still by a wide margin the lowest-grossing movie of the franchise overall. However, it has the second-highest budget of them all behind the $144 million reboot from 2016, which, given its cost, seems to be the only previous movie that lost money since the franchise kicked off in 1984 with the hit that is still its highest-grossing outing. Below, see how the budgets and worldwide box office totals compare for the entire five-movie franchise:

While international numbers for the fifth weekend of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire have not yet been fully calculated, it is unlikely to have hit that projected break-even point in week 5. It remains to be seen if it can hit that point at all by the end of its worldwide run. However, even if it does, the profit margin will likely still be quite low, which could damage the potential for the franchise to continue with any additional installments in the near future.

Source: Deadline