by Conan Simmons – November 22, 2021 – 4:58 am
Nostalgia rules the box office as ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’, the sequel to the hit 1984 comedy and the 1989 sequel, took the top spot in theaters over the weekend. Starring McKenna Grace, Paul Rudd and the trio of original Ghostbusters, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd, the fantasy comedy easily won the box office coming in at the high end of expectations with $44 million.
It is a healthy lead over the $10.8 million that Marvel’s cosmic adventure ‘Eternals’ earned as the family animated flick ‘Clifford the Big Red Dog’ nipped at the heels of superheroes biting off $8.1 million at the box office.
The weekends other wide release was the sports biopic ‘King Richard’ starring Will Smith as the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. The sports drama failed to connect with audiences scoring only $5.7 million. The publicity machine was clearly hard at work doing everything it could to drum up business but a combination of factors sunk the film in its debut. Mostly it is due to the decision by Warner Bros. to release all of their films day-and-date on HBO Max, a tactic that has ruined the box office potential of nearly all of their films save for a couple of special effects extravaganzas, e.g. ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ and ‘Dune’. Other factors keeping ‘King Richard’ from performing to higher numbers at the box office is the reluctance of older audiences to attend as pandemic measures remain in place.
Will Smith has been touted as a frontrunner for the Best Lead Actor Oscar for his role in ‘King Richard’ but that remains to be seen. If the buzz holds to the end of the year he has a chance. Currently, it seems like the same kind of buzz Andrew Garfield had going back in September when ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ was coming out. That film bombed pretty hard not even making it close to the Weekend Box Office Top 5. Now Andrew Garfield is getting the Oscar buzz again for the upcoming release of ‘Tick Tick Boom’, a musical that will also have a hard time breaking into the Top 5. Jessica Chastain has been able to salvage some of the Oscar buzz for herself for Lead Actress in ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ so perhaps Will Smith can do likewise with ‘King Richard’.
Next weekend is a holiday here in the U.S. and Thanksgiving weekend is always a big one at the box office. This year, ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ will have to fend off a multitude of newcomers especially the horror film based on a video game ‘Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City’ which will cut into much of the same audience that ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ is enjoying. ‘House of Gucci’, a biopic about the assassination of a fashion icon, will also be opening wide over the holiday as well as the Disney animated film ‘Encanto’. While ‘House of Gucci’ may succumb to the pitfalls preventing many other films aimed at more mature audiences, Disney’s ‘Encanto’ will see its own challenge as it hits streaming on Disney+ on December 24, a mere 30 days after its theatrical release, but don’t count it out, as any longtime reader of On Genre‘s Weekend Box Office Top 5 reports know, animated films have consistently done well over the past year, a fact no other outlet is willing to admit.
Also opening in limited release in theaters over the holiday session is the hit drama from Japan, ‘Drive My Car’, which is a frontrunner for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars and the memory piece from popular arthouse director Paul Thomas Anderson, ‘Licorice Pizza’, which is garnering some serious awards buzz especially around lead actress Alana Haim, from the pop trio Haim, making her screen debut.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (November 19-21, 2021)
- ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ – $44 million – fantasy (debut)
- ‘Eternals’ – $10.8 million – fantasy (drop $16.1 million, 60% down)
- ‘Clifford the Big Red Dog’ – $8.1 million – animated (drop $8.3 million, 51% down)
- ‘King Richard’ – $5.7 million – biopic (debut)
- ‘Dune’ – $3.1 million – sci-fi (drop $2.4 million, 44% down)
Total for the weekend is $71.7 million. This is a gain of $14.3 million from last weekend marking a 25% increase from last weekends total of $57.4 million.