As the ill conceived, ill marketed, ill reviewed Ghostbusters flops in its final international market of Japan, we examine the causes and consequences of this giant bust of a movie and compare it to an earlier film whose fantastic mistakes clearly weren't heeded.....
Fan4stic was made with a $120 million budget plus $80 million in marketing and reboots, meaning it cost $200 million to make. It only made $168 million in BO, meaning that, removing 50% theater profits, it only earned back 84 million, losing 116 million, aka it lost 58% of what it cost to make it.
Ghostbusters was made with $144 million budget plus $100-150 million in marketing costs, meaning $244-294 million was cost to make it. It will only make back $215 (being generous, as it will probably be only be $210) million in BO, meaning that, removing 50% theater profits, it only earned back 107 million, losing at least $137 million, aka it lost 56% of what it cost to make it
***(this is assuming the cost was $244 million; if marketing really was $150 million, that means this film lost $190 million aka 64% of its budget, which is worst than Fan4stic....)
Neither film was able to rely on merchandise sales, as Marvel kept any of FF merchandising money (although it's stated they purposefully decreased their X Men/FF merchandise output to spite Fox), and as far as Ghostbusters merchandise, the toys sold so little that they were on clearance before the film's release, and the game was so badly reviewed and sold that the company that made it went bankrupt days after the film's release.
Fan4stic only made $13 million in home sales, aka 7% of it's theater grossings, meaning that in total it earned 97 million and thus lost $103 million, aka 51% of its total budget.
Now if Ghostbusters has the same 7% trend, it will only make $15 million in home sales, bringing the film's total earnings to $122 million, thus losing $122-172 million, aka 50-58% (depending on the marketing cost) of its total budget.
It should be noted that studios are known to downplay if not outright hide financial numbers from the public to avoid scrutiny. So while Sony may have officially stated that it will have at worst a $75 million loss, as the numbers above show, the true size of the loss will be probably be double that. This is also the reason for Feig constantly shifting the break even number.
Doing simple math, if the films budget was $144 m, with an additional $100 m in advertising (again assuming the marketing cost was not $150 million as rumoured), that would bring the total cost of the film to $244 m, we'll say $250 m to be safe. Now since theater chains take half of the box office, that means that in order for the studio to make its money back, it would have to gross at least $500 m, which is what Feig originally stated, as if we went with his lower estimate of $300 m, that would mean that the studio would only make back $150 mil, less than half of the film's total production and marketing costs. However, considering the film did not even reach $300 million, not even $250 m, theatrically, and will likely do poorly in home sales, even Feig's most lowest bar for profit could not be met.
Both films had directors and studio executives attempting to alter the essential concepts of their franchise and deriding fan criticism during production, only to then attempt to market their film to said fans, with obvious disastrous results.
You have to love how stupid Sony, in particular executive Amy Pascal, and Paul Feig are. Just one year prior, Fantastic Four flopped at the box office, and the reasons for it's flopping was widely regarded to be Josh Trank's various internet posts attacking fans during production despite Fox doing everything possible to suppress his antics.
So what does Feig and Sony do? Not only do they support Feig's various attacks of the fans, but they actually encourage it.
With FF, Trank made various demeaning posts towards fans, but the cast and studio did everything they could to stay clean of director Trank's shenanigans so they would be absolved from the inevitable loss. With GB, on the other hand, the studio, director, AND cast all took turns demeaning the fans that they would eventually rely on (and receive no help from) to earn their box office. Even worse, they attacked AVGN for his objective criticism of the trailer, causing many on the internet to view the filmmakers as petty, unethical, and ruthless.
And you NEVER bring politics into the situation, which Feig did despite Sony trying to stop him. Amongst both Democrats and Republicans, Hillary is hated by millions as the second worst presidential candidate ever (behind Trump) and vehemently supporting her is sure to cause boycott from her MANY detractors.
That's why this movie tanked at the end of the day. Even if the film's quality is poor, it would have still made far more at the box office if Feig, Sony, and McCarthy didn't alienate millions of potential customers with their misandrist pro-Hillary marketing campaign before the film's release.
Any smart person would know that even if you are knowingly making a lazy reboot for a cash grab, even if the fans know it, you do everything you can to ensure the fans that they might enjoy your product, because they are your customers. The entire point of rebooting a cash cow franchise is to milk any remaining money out of prior customers of the franchise. You don't alter the appeal of the product, and thus the reason the customers originally bought the product, and then insult them before the film even premieres. Just like Trank, Sony, Pascal, and Feig made the ridiculous mistake of insulting the customers they would need to buy their product, and just like Trank it proved costly.
This film is looking at a $120-170 million loss, and this is at a time when Sony Films is DESPERATE for a success. Heads are going to roll with this one, and considering Tom "Firefly Cancelled" Rothman has the excuse of lowering the budget (yes, the situation is so bad that it made Tom Rothman look good...), that means that Pascal will (rightfully) carry the blame for this disaster.
Pascal was demoted for the Sony hacks, but after this, I can't see Sony keeping her around. As soon as all the final BO comes in and Sony sees exactly how much it lost, Pascal is probably going to get canned completely, and probably blacklisted if Ghostbusters leads to critical jeopardy for Sony Films Division.
As stated, Feig pulled a full on Josh Trank, rebooting a franchise in a way that completely alters the original concept of the franchise, and then taking it personally, acting like a baby, and lashing out at anybody who criticized those alterations. Hopefully his career will be finished after this. Any film he makes will carry the sting of this movie.
Feig, just like Trank, repeatedly acted like an arrogant petulant child towards what ultimately became legitimate criticisms of the movie. He's permanently stained himself with audiences and due to his flop costing Sony over $100 million, I definitely don't see any major studio placing him in charge of a big budget production. He's damaged goods at this point. Just like Trank.
Melissa McCarthy may also take a hit to her career and popularity for her offensive "basement dweller" comments, which made her appear myopic, petty, and arrogant. It will definitely affect her name as a box office draw.
This movie didn't deserve a chance. It was a cash cow product that literally had all original artistic merit sucked out of it via Amy Pascal booting Ivan Reitman, the creator of the franchise, off the film. Unless this film turned out to the Citizen Kane of supernatural comedies, it didn't deserve it's original creator to be booted off and replaced with a mildly successful director who insulted the fans.
I hope it bombs and honestly I hope it bombs so bad that it bankrupts Sony and it's all Pascal's fault. She deserves it for inferring with the artistic process by booting the artist who created the product she wanted to exploit. It's like stealing somebody's invention and then making said invention inoperable, or stealing an artist's masterpiece painting and then scribbling all over it. It's absolutely shameful. Amy Pascal and Paul Feig are going to get theirs for stealing Ivan Reitman's art from him.
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