As it turned out -- nope.
Conventional wisdom had it that "Beauty and the Beast" would win its third straight weekend with upwards of $45 million, while "Ghost" and cartoon "The Boss Baby" would both open around $25 million. But while "Beauty" held up as well as expected, "Boss" surged ahead with an estimated $49.0 million No. 1 debut, while "Ghost" underperformed in third place with just an estimated $18.6 million.
And yet, Johansson's popularity and box office history weren't enough to sell domestic audiences on "Ghost," which, for all its cult fanbase, is a largely unknown property to average moviegoers. In fact, she might have been a deterrent, either because the ads made the movie look a lot like a "Lucy" retread, or because moviegoers of color, who've been very vocal on social media about their opposition to seeing Johansson in this role, stayed home.
Then again, maybe the American release was an afterthought. Most of these films did much better overseas than they did here, and "Ghost" looks like it will follow that pattern. (It's already earned $40 million abroad.)
Indeed, Johansson went to Tokyo last November to promote the movie to a receptive audience. In Japan, they're familiar with the "Ghost" story, they like visual spectacle, they like Johansson, and they're not offended by the casting of a white American star, perhaps because Japanese moviegoers have plenty of homegrown movies that offer heroes who look like themselves. But it's not exactly a win-win for us or Hollywood when, out of two bad movies coming out, we picked the least terrible film to put at the top of the box office.
