The reboot of “Ghostbusters” starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig as its namesake paranormal-activity investigators opened in second place to an estimated $46 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, a performance that leaves a long road to profitability.
Few movies of the summer have come into theaters with more buzz than “Ghostbusters,” which replaced the 1984 cast with a female foursome that also included “Saturday Night Live” cast members Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon. The film is among the most high-profile projects this year for its studio, Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Loyalists to the original movie and its all-male cast of ghost catchers rebelled against the female-led reboot in forums across the internet, causing a separate outcry to emerge in defense of the project. “The controversy and all the attention helped us get out there,” said Josh Greenstein, Sony’s president of world-wide marketing and distribution.
The $46 million opening is solid for a comedy, but the movie’s $144 million production budget put Sony in need of a more impressive debut. Greenstein said he expects the movie to avoid any steep drop-offs in attendance in the weeks to come, repeating the pattern of other movies helmed by “Ghostbusters” director Paul Feig.
The animated talking-animals movie “The Secret Life of Pets” held the top spot at the box office, adding $50.6 million to its haul for a two-week total of $203.2 million. The movie, produced by Illumination Entertainment and released by Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures, is a hit given its $75 million budget.
This article was originally published on Marketwatch.