Is the Sony studio trying to limit the damage after the disappointing score of Ghostbusters: The Ice Menace at the box office?
While Ghostbusters: The Ice Menace had a rather lukewarm start in the United States, it must be admitted that things did not heat up for Jason Reitman’s film. Indeed, the sequel to the cult saga really took a nosedive over its weeks in theaters, in particular because of the murderous reviews making it total a “meager” 195 million dollars in revenue worldwide.
With an estimated budget of $100 million, the film’s revenues are clearly insufficient. And as the film arrives on the digital market, it is time to take stock of this Ghostbusters 4.
Ghostbusters 4 throws a chill
It is Ghostbusters News who revealed that Ghostbusters: The Ice Menace would arrive on VOD on May 7, 2024 in the United States. As confirmed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, the feature film will be available for purchase or rental, and will also be entitled to a physical release apparently imminent (pre-orders are even already there).
Nine weeks separate the cinema release from the video release, a little longer than the delay for the previous film. So this is not a disastrous case like Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (four weeks), Shazam 2 (three weeks), or The Last Voyage of Demeter (three weeks). But it nevertheless allows us to measure the non-success of the film at the box office.
The Phantom Menace
Ghostbusters: disappointment
It is actually quite logical to see The Threat of Ice take this path, since that had also been the fate of the previous opus, The Legacy, which allowed the studio to finally limit the damage with the sales figures. This will not, however, allow the last Ghostbusters to catch up. The Legacy had made around $204 million in revenue on a budget of $75 million, which was much better (proportionally) than this fourth opus.
And it’s obviously the same thing for the first two parts of the saga, Ghostbusters ($296.6 million in revenue for $30 million in budget) and Ghostbusters 2 ($215 million for and 37 million budget). Only the 2016 reboot (229 million dollars in revenue for a budget of 144 million) should remain a bigger financial failure than The Threat of Ice.
No
As for The Legacy and quite a few films recently (this is really becoming a recurring strategy for the various flops and fours at the box office), Ghostbusters: The Ice Menace will therefore be available on VOD less than a month and a half after its release. The opportunity to discover the film for those who, perhaps, still want to.
