Ghostbusters Captures $17.2 Million In Friday Box Office

Executives at Sony are I'm sure pleased to hear the news that their much debated Ghostbusters [...]

By Matthew Aguilar

ghostbusters2016

Executives at Sony are I'm sure pleased to hear the news that their much debated Ghostbusters reboot is off to a strong start, capturing $17.2 million in Friday box office.

That should help bolster its numbers to that ever so hopeful $50 million number we've been hearing in early tracking. The Secret Life of Pets is right behind it, though (in its second week) with $15.1 million in Friday totals, so it remains to be seen if Ghostbusters can claim the number one spot for the weekend (via The Wrap).

Ghostbusters has had a rough road to its theatrical release, but positive word of mouth from early screenings has helped it get back some momentum. Plus, as studio brass at Sony expressed before, even if all the conversation was negative, at least people were still talking about it, and the film seemingly used that to its advantage.

Even with all the negative publicity, the film has also been certified fresh on popular reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and received the seal of approval from the original cast, including Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Bill Murray. That's good news for the reboot, as it has a bit of a way to go to recoup its $144 million dollar production budget, and a release in the ever growing Chinese market might be a long time coming.

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