A remake of Ghostbusters is something that immediately caused a big stir on social media as the entire film received an overhaul. Going from an all-male team to an all-female team and trying to make a cult classic didn’t exactly seem to help matters, but why did it ultimately fail? The massive losses that Sony Pictures will endure from this reboot have not only called for an end of the franchise entirely but also caused director Paul Feig to sort of lose his mind.
IGN is reporting that Ghostbusters could end up costing Sony Pictures as much as $70 million when all is said and done at the box office. Less than a month after its domestic release, it has brought in just $180 million worldwide with openings in a few other countries yet to come.
Estimates still don’t have it going higher than $220-225 million which, taking the budget into account, will cause the movie to fall well short of Sony’s minimum goal of $300 million. That being said, there is really no hope for a sequel now even though Sony said in June that one “will happen.”
Right after it opened last month, the Hollywood Reporterbelieved that Ghostbusterswould come backto bite Sony. The opening weekend domestic haul of $46 million wasn’t bad, but it was nowhere near what studio heads were hoping for.
It’s hard to really blame the failure of the film on the reviews of critics as it really hasn’t been seen in a very negative light. A month after its release and it has a 74 percent rating (281 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes and 57 percent of fans liked it.
The downfall of the film can’t really be placed strictly on negative reviews as many other films have had much lower scores and brought in a lot more money. Suicide Squad has a rating of just 27 percent, yet it has over $179 million domestically in a single week as reported by Deadline .
#SuicideSquad nears the $200 million milestone at the international box office. https://t.co/ryfzJG8nsY pic.twitter.com/W8HKRUlAqV
— Variety (@Variety) August 12, 2016
Ghostbusters was doomed from the moment that the cast was announced and it was all because of the public reaction to it. Social media tore it to shreds early on and it simply could never recover from the backlash received from those that had never even seen the film.
The same thing happened to Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice immediately after it hit theaters. It started out fast and almost hit the billion dollar mark, but it faded out fast and never reached the levels that many thought it would hit.
One thing of note is that many fans went to see Dawn of Justice and simply didn’t think the movie was good. The obvious difference here is that people aren’t even going to see Ghostbusters due to poor reception of the cast, crew, and concept and that is causing it to have horribly low box office numbers.
Ghostbusters director Paul Feig really hasn’t helped matters much. While he has been defending and promoting his film on social media as any good director should, he has gotten a bit carried away.
The Twitter user known as Papi Memes posted this on Twitter when word got out that a sequel to Ghostbusterswasn’t happening due to the monetary losses. Heat Streetreported that after this was posted, Paul Feig retweetedthe post and it caused his fans to lash out on Papi Memes and verbally harass him.
Later that same day, Papi Memes claimed to have been locked out of his Twitter account and advised he could not return to the site until he deleted his tweet about Feig and Ghostbusters .
WOW I WAS LOGGED OUT AND FORCED TO DELETE THE TWEET ISNT THAT CENSORSHIP?
— Papi Memes (@TheBardockObama) August 11, 2016
SO BECAUSE IM NOT ALLOWED TO DISLIKE A FILM OR ELSE ILL BE CENSORED
— Papi Memes (@TheBardockObama) August 11, 2016
Papi Memes says he had already had his Twitter account suspended once before after tweeting that the film had flopped. If Feig actually had anything to do with his account being suspended due to the negative tweet about Ghostbusters , then that simply shows how much frustration the film’s failures have caused.
The movie didn’t necessarily fail because it was bad or poorly written or even changed the whole scheme of who the Ghostbusters are. Social media had it out for this film from the beginning and it was never able to recover before it even hit the screen.
Unfortunately, it could be a very long time until anything with the Ghostbusters is seen again. Maybe never.
Paul Feig hoped to do something different and unique and breathe new life into a beloved Ghostbusters franchise that hasn’t seen anything new in decades. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work and it caused Sony to lose a lot of money which has brought the Ghostbusters to rest for at least the immediate future. It received decent reviews, but the initial fan reaction, loss of money, and Paul Feig have caused it to head back into the containment unit.
[Image via Sony Pictures]