Discuss all things Ghostbusters here, unless they would be better suited in one of the few forums below.
#4969891
*Just an FYI. This post might bother some GB16 fans. If that’s a trigger for you, you may want to avoid the following. Apologies in advance.*

Top Gun Maverick is getting the hype & potential of what a GB3 with the OG cast could’ve been. Of course we will never know that for sure, but we can make a few suppositions.
Top Gun is a beloved property but I would say there’s no argument that Ghostbusters dwarfs it in it’s popularity, right? It’s a little hard to judge those things but if you look at box office comparison between the OG films & cultural staying power, they are similar but I’d give GB the edge. Both had huge soundtracks and number 1 songs. But GB had the animated series and merchandise that Top Gun never did. Infact I’d prob say Top Gun is more dated than GB, but still pretty well regarded.
Yet I can feel the hype for this movie in the theatre everytime the trailer plays in a way I never did for GB16/GBA. Somehow I doubt if Top Gun Maverick only featured a 4 minute Tom Cruise cameo at the end there’d be the same hype. It’s looking to open at about 130 million. I can see it doing more. I’d say 160 isn’t out of reach. But the box office prognosticators are guessing a 100+ opening to easily within reach.

What we are seeing is what could’ve been for this franchise. I know, I know. But it’s really hard not to understate what a colossal mistake GB16 was. We’ve been over that. But that’s where it all went wrong, from a box office POV.

Top Gun Maverick is Tom Cruise, in the lead, supported by new characters. Boom. That’s it. That’s all they had to do. And they got it wrong twice. Twice. I’m sorry, I know a lot of you LOVE GBA. I wish I could…


This is the last time I’ll say this(that’s probably a lie). But GB3 needed to be Dan, Bill & Ernie(or Harold before he passed) with a bunch of younger talent in the wings and not doing that is one of the biggest F ups in franchise filmmaking history. Sony thought the audience loyalty was to the concept. The same way they thought MiB was the concept. But because Sony is stupid, and boy are they stupid, they tried to be hip. Oof. I still remember that trailer, one of the worst main stream trailers ever forged by humankind, I remember it playing in front of Batman V Superman and Captain America Civil War. I remember the buzz in the air as those Ray Parker Jr piano notes hit and the text started with “in 1984 four scientists saved New York”…and I remember the silence, the deafening silence after the “the power of patty compels you” ending. No Dan Aykroyd as Ray, No Ernie Hudson as Winston and no Bill Murray as Venkman & no laughs. That’s what’s audiences were thinking. “Where are the ghostbusters?”

I’ll say this until I’m blue in the face but Ghostbusters IS those characters/actors. The same way Top Gun IS Tom Cruise. Or Indiana Jones IS Harrison Ford. It doesn’t mean those franchises are exactly the same, just that the audience identifies the franchise with those names.

Some fans are cool so long as the studio keep chugging out the films and merch. But me? I like to know the franchise I love is loved, that it kills at the box office. I guess it’s the same way that we like it when our sports teams not only win, but dominate. I wasn’t around in 1984 to see Ghostbusters at its zenith. And I was too young for the RGB/GB2 media blitz. Seeing GB16 bomb sucked and seeing GBA do “meh” wasn’t much better.

But there’s certain movies that you can just tell are going to be hits. You can feel it in the air. It’s in the way people talk about it or get excited about it. It’s very unscientific but if anyone was alive in 2002 you felt that with Spider-Man. You could feel it when people talked about another Indiana Jones movie. The Star Wars prequels. The Matrix sequels. Fellowship of the Ring. Some of them you could feel months before the movie came out, others before cameras even rolled. Ghostbusters 3 circa 1999-2013 was in that realm.

So if anyone wants to see what a possible GB3 opening might look like, Top Gun Maverick could be your answer. Maverick is back, flying planes, with new characters, new villains and with made 21st century tech on a huge budget. That’s what the audience wants, Paramount + Tom Cruise knew that, because they aren’t stupid, and they’ll reap the rewards.
#4969895
I agree Sony is stupid in many ways, and in many decisions they've taken... Including not showing interest in making a new Ghostbusters film for the whole stretch of the 1990s, but I think their decisions in the 2010s regarding looking towards a new cast weren't without merit. In fact, it was probably extremely pragmatic under the circumstances.

Dan was 64, Bill 66 and Ernie 71 in 2016. We'd lost Harold, and of the four original Ghostbusters actors, Ernie was probably the most in-shape and able to do the leg work associated with playing a Ghostbuster on the big screen. Sony had already had experience of the difficulties that one actor can cause just from how obstinate he could be, let alone the physical restrictions of actors in advancing age.

And let's be fair here, there aren't a lot of big-budget films with action sequences where the actors in their 60s or 70s are the lead characters and doing the heavy lifting of those sequences - if they'd made a "Ghostbusters 3" with Dan, Ernie and Bill in 2016 it would've been more like Space Cowboys than the first two movies.

It made a lot of sense that the future of Ghostbusters would lie in new characters, and the decision to make them unconnected to the characters from the 1980s movies was likely a reflection over the then status-quo with the original cast, some who were reaching or past the age of retirement, and one who was an obstinate asshole.

I can't blame Sony for thinking that people wouldn't want to see/be interested in seeing geriatric Ghostbusters on-screen...

Which is also likewise some of the reasoning behind Men in Black: International... Tommy Lee Jones was visibly looking his age in Men in Black 3 and Will Smith's slowly pricing himself out of the market. Like Ghostbusters, Sony wanted to relaunch two of its brands and it understandably wanted to maybe crank out a few movies without the fear of core cast-members passing away between movies, or even during production... Again, bringing in new, younger characters had a lot of merit.

One of Sony's crimes was just that they really underestimated how much people still wanted to see Ray, Egon, Peter and Winston (and Agents J and K) in some capacity... Though on the flip-side of that coin, I do wonder if perhaps our desire to see them again may also have been a little bit unreasonable, given the relative ages of the actors.

And I think, having now seen Afterlife, that Sony's feelings about how up to the physical task the original actors have somewhat borne out... While Dan, Bill and Ernie have donned the uniforms and equipment, for a good chunk of their time they're standing around... Rather than doing the physical back-and-forth between each other like we see on top of the Shandor Building.

And I feel confident that neither Dan nor Bill would be up to running around whilst wearing the gear, even taking into account the 2020s props are very likely lighter than the ones they wore whilst in their 30s.

Ultimately, I think that if we'd had the original cast helming a movie in 2016, we probably would've got what we got a brief glimpse of in Afterlife, and I'm not sure if that ultimately would've been better. That movie would've needed to be a passing-of-the-torch movie as well... But I don't think it would've had as much heart as I feel Afterlife has.


And for what it's worth regarding Top Gun: Maverick... I don't think it's entirely fair to compare the two and say "Top Gun Maverick's the way it should've been done" because Tom and Top Gun had it a hell of a lot easier than any Ghostbusters sequel.

For starters, the franchise never had a disappointing sequel, then there's the fact that Tom's going to be spending a lot of the movie sat down in a cockpit set, rather than running around wearing heavy and bulky props... He's in an easier position to return to the role than the Ghostbusters cast because it's a less physically-active role, that he was likely never obstinately opposed to playing Maverick again, and he's an actor who's never really slid out of popularity even if his personal life is a bizarre cult.

Further things that'll help the movie will be the fact it's got the "kick-ass fighter jet pilot" angle, which we've not seen a lot of late (possibly thanks to Stealth and Independence Day: Resurgence), as well as the movie's slightly subtle message of "look how awesome our military is" which is likely to speak to certain members of the public as well.

Top Gun: Maverick might've served as a good example of what a Ghostbusters sequel could achieve had things gone differently, had Sony shown interest sooner, but I think even if they had acted sooner, Bill would still probably have been the road block to getting anything off the ground.
#4969898
A Ghostbusters 4 isn't going to be centered around the original cast unless Sony want's to throw proton packs on basically what would be the sequel to Grumpier Old Men, or at best Second Hand Lions. Not saying they can't open with the original Busters, that's going to be a given. Afterlife ended with WInston and Wreckto (no matter how many times I type Wreckto it sounds like a bowel movement...)

The film should open up with a brand new restored Ecto. Think Ecto 1-B with upgraded roof crap pulling out of the firehouse with "were hiring" flashing in big bold LED text. Winston and Dan, or just Winston are in the drivers seat and that's more then likely the involvement well get other then Dan or Winston interviewing people, or going down to the NYPD to bail out the new team when things get out of hand. It wouldn't surprise me if they have scenes of the OG's working on new equipment and overseeing the restoration of the ECU. I expect the fire house to be restored between Afterlife and it's sequel.
#4969944
This might be a bitter pill to swallow, while I agree with the premise that the OG actors are a big pull for bringing audiences back to a franchise sequel, but I disagree with the premise that the non-nerdy public at large holds as much interest in Ghostbusters as a film franchise as Top Gun. I think the general public have relegated GB as a Halloween season concept or (especially after the online controversy of GB:ATC) rooted in nerd culture, where Top Gun doesn't have that baggage and has broader appeal. Reboots of IP where the original is still culturally relevant enough for the average person to have comparative experience of the actors, the directorial/cinematography, props, settings ephemera are really difficult to balance between telling an entirely unique story with a similar premise and just retreading for the sake of not raising the ire of those who hold fondly in their memories the original.
#4970322
I just saw Top Gun. It seems like the ideal movie to bring a date to—it literally ends with a song with lyrics about holding hands. Lots of shirtless people. I’m not saying that you couldn’t take a date to Ghostbusters, but it’s just not as…sexy as Top Gun. It’s better, but not sexier. Even Dana as the gatekeeper is mostly played for laughs. I think that’s why Top Gun has so much hype surrounding it compared to Afterlife.
#4970330
I've seen Top Gun 2 twice now. I would have to say it is a perfect Top Gun sequel. As a big fan of it growing up. I can safely say in terms of the "feeling" of the film as I said IMO it's a perfect sequel. Afterlife certainly had it's moments but Top Gun 2 isn't Maverick walking around saying he's too old and complaining about retiring. He's also not going back into business again which for Afterlife is the third time we've seen the company start back up.

They are drastically different themes obviously but without getting into spoilers I have to say I enjoyed TG2 better. I liked Afterlife yes definitely but the role Maverick takes in TG2 is as mentioned by others is where I would have liked to have seen the core 4...or 3 as it were. There were possibilities there not explored and maybe we'll get that with a new 4th film but I really think TG could get a third film and still do well itself with Cruise in the role he plays here. Ernie can still wear the gear but we've seen Bill and Dan are likely past throwing streams these days.

Both films were made by people were passionate about the originals films and I'm not saying that the efforts put in for Afterlife were less then TG2 though remaking Ecto-1 and going up with fighter pilots are a tad different. I suppose as mentioned I think we as fans get collectively down about the fact that we're this many years from the original and despite references about "new recruits", "franchises" and "cadets" in films, comics, cartoons and games it's still the fan base that adopted that thinking with the large amount of franchise groups through the world. When Afterlife concludes we're again given that idea...but will it be the Spenglers again?, Grooberson? There's still ground work to lay there and not everyone wants to see kids throwing streams.

Again I'm not saying Afterlife was worse or bad in any way. We still got a fresh wave of GB merch from Afterlife which will hopefully include a new plasma PKE and Trap. I'm saying the use of the legacy characters in TG2 was done significantly better. Are there questions I have about other characters from the first film? yes but they weren't essential to this film. Others are addressed in dialogue tie offs. With Afterlife there is literally another movie inside Afterlife that one could do that would focus on what the OG's were up to after Ray gets the call from Phoebe.

Again these films are different themes but still big parts of the 80's. I just felt more like TopGun hit the beats better. Jason opens and closes Afterlife including the credits in a different way then his dad did the original and GB2. With TG2 that familiarity is how it immediately tells you your back in this world and when you leave it. I liked both films but felt TG2 used the material better. But Afterlife certainly put GB back into the public mindset again. I guess we wait and see what GB4 will bring about and if were going to maybe get better usage out of the OG's.
Sav C liked this

    Someone ID'd them on Facebook first, there w[…]

    Two specific ideas I have are basically holiday sp[…]

    While waiting impatiently for Frozen Empire to rel[…]

    Make it that pack, sell it for $599. (While I […]