‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ soars to top of box office with big opening weekend

Oppenheimer continues to break records around the world, and now the film has become Christopher Nolan’s biggest Box Office hit overseas.The biopic profiles Robert J. Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy), the real-life American physicist who played a pivotal role in the creation of the atomic bomb in World War II.

Refresh for latest…: A busy holdover weekend for wide studio releases was led by the trio of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kung Fu Panda 4 and Dune: Part Two. And, in a soaring performance, Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar winner The Boy and the Heron swooped into China helping the market set a new Qingming holiday record. 

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is huge!

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter More than eight months (and one Oscar best picture win) after “Oppenheimer” landed in theaters, Christopher Nolan’s historical epic is still finding new audiences. The film opened over the weekend in its final market, Japan, with $2.5 million from 343 theaters. It placed third on the country’s box office charts after two local offerings, the horror movie “Strange House” and the animated “Haikyu!!” According to Universal Pictures, “Oppenheimer” is the biggest opening weekend of 2024 for a Hollywood release in Japan, surpassing “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” ($1.6 million) and “Dune: Part Two” ($1.3 million).

With a $45.5 million haul at the box office this weekend, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” is the number one film in the country, and the Ghostbusters are back. While it remains to be seen if there will be a sequel—‘Frozen Empire’ cost $100 million, so it’ll need to make much more than “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”— fans will still have plenty of modern material to keep them happy if audiences want them.

Hollywood star Paul Rudd has revealed he's a huge fan of Gogglebox and reckons TV is better in the UK than it is in the USA. The 54-year-old stars in the latest Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire film which released on Friday (March 22).

Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 had a rock ‘em sock ‘em weekend at the international box office, adding $55.3M from 69 markets for a $135M overseas running cume, and $268.2M global (there are several key markets still to release, including France, Australia, the UK and Korea). 

IFC’s Late Night With The Devil has scared up the distributor’s largest opening weekend ever with an estimated $2.8+ million on 1.043 screens, coming in at no. 6 at the domestic box office.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is on top!

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” ruled over the domestic box office and arrived on the higher end of expectations. The latest installment in Sony’s supernatural comedy series has collected $45.2 million in its debut in 4,345 North American theaters. Earlier in the weekend, “Frozen Empire” looked like it would top out with $42 million but estimates were revised up after a bigger-than-expected Sunday.

J. Kim Murphy “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” kicked off with $16 millionin North American ticket sales across Friday and preview screenings in 4,345 theaters. That nearly matchesthe $16.6 million that its predecessor “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” earned on its opening day in November 2021.

SPOILER ALERT – Do not read ahead if you haven’t seen Immaculate yet!

FRIDAY PM: As of right now, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empireis looking alright with a $16M Friday and $42M-$43M opening at 4,345 theaters. That Friday is on par with Ghostbusters: Afterlife‘s first day (plus previews) of $16.6M, and should that 3-day keep up, it will only be a $1M shy of the 2021 Jason Reitman directed title.

Jordan Moreau Ghostbusting is back at the box office! “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” the fifth and latest movie in the frightening franchise, has made $4.7 million at the box office in Thursday previews. Sony and Columbia Pictures’ new movie, which reunites the original stars of the ’80s classic and the cast from the 2021 “Afterlife” sequel, is expected to top the box office this weekend with an opening between $43 million and $45 million. That launch is in line with the previous film that revived the franchise, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” which had a $45 million opening amid the pandemic.

Timothée Chalamet's newest movies have helped him reach record-breaking status. In the late '70s, John Travolta had two top-grossing films come out within eight months of each other. "Saturday Night Fever" came out in December 1977 and "Greece" came out in June 1978.

“Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” shows just how wrong a tried-and-true formula can go.How could these filmmakers possibly fumble the simple plot of “Answer the phone, find the ghost, vanquish the ghost”? Start by playing up a wholesome family sitcom dynamic that sanitizes the old story into a forgettable “Growing Pains” with lasers. After the likable last film, the Spenglers have relocated from dusty Oklahoma to New York City, where grandpa Egon (the late Harold Ramis) and pals Peter (Bill Murray), Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) first donned the beige suits and battled the Stay Puft marshmallow man.

Oddly shaped, leisurely paced, and perhaps resembling an episode of the non-existent “Ghostbusters” TV show had there been one, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” is a curious film, out of time with modern editing rhythms. It’s atypical and unusual by today’s standards until you realize, ‘Oh, right, it’s a ‘Ghostbusters’ movie,’ already fitting into the oddball and unlikely genre of paranormal comedy.

Quite alarmingly, the fifth entry in the Ghostbusters series — following straight on from the unexpectedly charming Afterlife — starts by quoting all 51 words of Robert Frost’s 1923 poem Fire and Ice, which posits two very different apocalyptic scenarios for the end of the world. Has the franchise suddenly fallen prey to the glum Christopher Nolanization of what we used to think of as bubblegum entertainment? Is Paul Feig’s controversial 2016 all-female iteration about to be frozen out of the canon? Will it be worthy and… boring?

Sydney Sweeney has opened up more about starring in Sony Pictures‘ Madame Web, which she has described as a “strategic business decision”.Speaking to GQ UK recently, Sweeney responded to the film’s negative reception and co-star Dakota Johnson‘s comments about the film’s production and flop at the box office. While Johnson said she “probably will never do anything like it again”, Sweeney’s open to taking another crack at the film: “I think that if the story is right and you have the right team, I would love to.”However, Sweeney also revealed that her decision to act in Madame Web was more of a business move than anything else: “To me that film was a building block, it’s what allowed me to build a relationship with Sony.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part II” continued its sway atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for a third consecutive weekend with £4 million ($5.1 million), according to numbers from Comscore. Denis Villeneuve’s anticipated sequel has an all-star cast including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem reprising their roles from the first film, with Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken and Léa Seydoux joining them.