The Bomb (2016 Full Movie)

[Raguel Charrette]

AsI predicted back in March, Ghostbusters (2016) failed at the box office. Its Thursday opening in the States was only $3.4M. Throughout the weekend the film continued to play to largely empty rooms.

The verdict is in: You cannot build an effective marketing campaign around manufactured controversy and misandry slacktivism. You cannot attempt to manipulate the politics of gender wars for profit on a comedy franchise property.

That was a dumb idea. The fact is misandric feminists are not a significant consumer power in the world market. The idea they would make the film into a box office miracle was based in nothing factual.

Ghostbusters bombed for one reason above all others: Paul Feig created an echo chamber where he heard only his own agreeable thoughts and dismissed any criticism of his film that was leveled at it by the mass consumer since its very early conception. The market told Paul Feig it did not want his reboot and he did not listen. That is why Ghostbusters failed in the market just as any product developed and marketed under these conditions has. It was the easily predictable outcome for Ghostbusters.

Just because you can get a few dozen die-hard fans enamored with the reboot by giving them the attention they so desperately crave does not a viral marketing campaign make. The reality is the core product has to address the needs of the majority of target consumers and the reboot consistently ignored these needs. That is why it failed to entice them to go to the box office.

Worse Sony honestly thought they could build a cinematic universe out of Ghostbusters by centering its themes around a divisive issue like radical psuedo-feminism while having limited involvement from the original cast and producers. This notion is utterly detached from market reality.

The producers have made the same mistake of anyone who has experienced some success; they were blinded by their arrogance and intentionally ignored all the warning signs. They allowed their pride to reign over their logic.

The market told you they did not want this reboot. You ignored that and instead launched an expensive marketing campaign based solely on insulting the customer to address your wounded pride. The market rejected the very concept of your product and instead of changing course to make the product it wanted, you made only what you wanted to.

UPDATE: 7/20 : Sony has started laying off US division employees. Looks like someone might be taking my advice to heart! Given this article has been receiving 3,000+ views per day since I published it, I imagine at least someone at Sony has read it.

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