It made $128 million domestically. That SHOULD have been a success, that is HUGE money for a comedy. But they had big eyes about anchoring their own “cinematic universe” so they spent $144 million and it flopped. If they’d only put a reasonable comedy budget on it of say $30 million it would have been a massive success.
Sorry, but I guarantee their Marketing budget alone was probably more than 30 Millionover the production cost... Do you think Dan Akroid and Bill Murray were pitching this thing for free?
No it wasn’t an abject failure, but they tried to turn it into some feminist thing which was stupid... though it probably got them more butts in seats overall.
Ghostbusters never had another movie made because it had problems, attempts to make more happened at least 3 times prior to this thing... and simply changing the gender didn’t solve miraculously the problems.
Could it have been made cheaper and not lost money? Probably, but it was NEVER going to be as big as the original...
The original made nearly $300 Million in 1984 dollars.. For this one to be equivalent it would have to have made $750 Million dollars just to be equivalent adjusting for inflation... which of course it made nowhere near.
GB original made HUGE MONEY for a comedy.. this thing not so much.