The recently released Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is coming to a halt at the box office soon. Earning 107 million over the weekend, the movie’s roll has slowed down considerably. The amount might just touch the 110 mark before it stops. Amusingly, the movie has collected a significantly lower amount of cash at the box office than the last two films. The franchise has been previously blamed by multiple agents for its collections, ranging from racism to franchise fatigue. Begs the question, though: What will it be this time?
Let’s see for ourselves: Ghostbuster is a franchise full of nostalgia from the 1980s along with a huge fan base. When Ghostbusters made a return in 2016 with an all-female cast, there were people objecting to Hollywood wokeism. It doesn’t come as a surprise that such a drastic change, which felt like propaganda, led to a low collection. The sequel “Afterlife” played a few strokes right, with the original cast returning to reprise the roles. The film did fairly better. Given its release amidst the pandemic, it managed to pull in 129 million at the box office.
So what happened this time? With the pandemic being a distant memory and its nostalgia-fuelled cast and plotline, the problem might just be the fans’ reception. Could it be that the public is genuinely uninterested in ghostbusters? There might be franchise fatigue at play. People are bored with every other studio trying to cash in on a cinematic universe. Either way, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire might just leave a cold trail for the franchise.
