Box Office Report for the Week of November 21

Jason Reitman‘s sequel to Ghostbusters II – Ghostbusters: Afterlife (reviewed fondly by Joey here) – debuted in first place at the North American box office this weekend with an estimated $44M from 4,315 locations, making it the highest-grossing film of this past week.

There’s no doubt that when it comes to the Ghostbusters franchise, audiences will almost always show up. It also surpassed the film’s studio – Sony Pictures – original projections of $27-28 million.

Coming in second place this weekend is Chloe Zhao‘s first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in the form of Eternals, which features a stacked cast. Despite its less than favorable reviews, the superhero blockbuster still managed to pull in $10.82 million this weekend, although it did see a -59% drop from last weekend.

Clifford the Big Red Dog comes in third place this week, earning a total of $8.1 million which dropped 51% to an estimated $8.1M following its $16.63M debut last weekend. The family release has $33.51M to date.

Meanwhile, Reinaldo Marcus Green‘s sports drama biopic King Richard – starring Will Smith – came in fourth, earning a weekend total of $5.7 million from 3,302 locations, which is at the lower end of expectations (Joey’s review is here). Did the day-and-date release with theaters and HBO Max hurt the film’s potential numbers? It’s a fair question to ask.

Here’s the full list of the top ten films of the week:

1. Ghostbusters: Afterlife – $44M – 4,315 theatres
2. Eternals – $10.82M (-59%) – 4,055 theatres
3. Clifford the Big Red Dog – $8.1M (-51%) – 3,628 theatres
4. King Richard – $5.7M – 3,302 theatres
5. Dune – $3M (-44%) – 2,467 theatres
6. Venom: Let There Be Carnage – $2.8M (-28%) – 2,538 theatres
7. No Time to Die – $2.7M (-40%) – 2,407 theatres
8. The French Dispatch – $970K (-44%) – 805 theatres
9. Belfast – $940K – (-47%) – 584 theatres
10. Ron’s Gone Wrong – $888K (-59%) – 1,520 theatres

Source: Box Office Pro