‘Ghostbusters’ holds its own, but ‘Life of Pets’ still No. 1

Paul Feig’s franchise reboot earned $46 million, coming in second at the domestic box office behind the animated comedy “The Secret Life of Pets”, which added another $50.6 million to its coffers, bringing its USA total to $203.2 million.

“The Secret Life of Pets”, a Universal and Illumination Entertainment animated film, dug up $50.5 million in its second weekend of release. The movie’s $46 million opening narrowly missed making number one, and isn’t a rousing start when compared to a chunky $144 million production budget and substantial marketing costs, but there’s a reasonable expectation for the movie to at least break even and leaves a small window for anyone hoping to see a sequel. “Ghostbusters” opens internationally in the English language territories of the United Kingdom and Australia as well as Brazil and a handful of other smaller markets.

Sony-Village Roadshow’s “Ghostbusters”, starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, is on its way to posting the best debut weekend for a live-action comedy since “Pitch Perfect 2” opened with $69 million past year. In classic 1984 movie, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Harold Ramis famously starred as the Ghostbusters. Secondly, thanks to a Cinemascore of A- from the under-25 audience, for an overall score of B+, Sony isn’t too anxious for the film’s prospect with audiences, considering this is the same score both Bridesmaids and Spy earned.

Not surprisingly, Ghostbusters skewed heavily female (57 percent) for an all-audience tentpole, while 63 percent of ticket buyers were over the age of 25.

Overall, Dergarabedian counts it as a “solid” opening for one of the year’s more controversial films. Their previous best was The Heat, which debuted to $39.1 million.

Paul Feig’s reboot of the classic paranormal comedy series has proven a hit with both critics and audiences alike – and now holds a 73 percent rating on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. John Leguizamo, Diane Kruger, Benjamin Bratt, Yul Vazquez and Amy Ryan also star.