There’s no stopping an animated comedy about cute and cuddly pets. Not that Ghostbusters had a chance, anyway, due to all the fanfare since the new installment in the franchise was announced last year. The Secret Life of Pets made an estimated $50,560,000 in ticket sales this weekend, July 15 to July 17, and ran away with the #1 spot. Ghostbusters wasn’t too far behind and zapped in about $46,000,000 in ticket sales, coming in at #2 at the box office during its opening weekend. Comparatively, Ghostbusters opened to $13,578,000 in 1984 and Ghostbusters II opened to $29,472,000 in 1989. This is actually a meager opening when considering the film from Sony was unleashed to 3,963 theaters nationwide. It looks like it’s going to be a battle to recoup the film’s $150,000,000 production budget despite its star studded cast.
In other news, The Purge: Election Year was the #6 movie this weekend, slashing its way to $6,080,000 in ticket sales and bringing the film’s overall gross to $71,001,000. It will easily become the most popular entry in the franchise, with The Purge taking in a cumulative gross of $64,473,000 and The Purge: Anarchy taking in $71,962,000 during their complete theatrical run. Independence Day was #10 with $3,450,000 in ticket stubs and a total of $98,516,000 to date. Just outside the top 10, The Shallows was #11 with $3,000,000 and a total gross of $51,395,000 – now way more than twice its production budget. The Conjuring 2 was #13 with $860,000 in sales and a total of $101,111,000 made so far.
