Ghostbusters is currently in a mess. Sure the new one has it's fans, but the truth is that it is a huge financial money-loser ($70-$75 million is currently the estimated loss). The critics gave it the thumbs up, but audience reaction was not that great and a lot of fans of the original are not that happy with what happened to Ghostbusters - based on the choice to remake it, the quality of the remake, the tone of the remake and NOT because of the female aspect. As a result and as can be currently seen in the media, the future of Ghostbusters movies looks quite bleak at this point. This is all Sony's fault and only happened when Harold Ramis passed away, which is what I was saying when I said "I am quite passionate and disappointed by everything that has happened to it since the loss of Harold Ramis, which was tragically the catalyst for where it stands now".
I'd like to point out that it's funny this movie is considered that much a loss considering how poorly most of the summer movies did. It all comes down to Hollywood book-keeping, and the film made back its production budget, but they threw so much at advertising, it's considered a failure. Meanwhile, it's second week competition Star Trek Beyond made less money and had a higher budget. The only reason why this year's horrid flops are successful is China keeps bailing them out. Ice Age 5 opened an abysmal 20 something million and disappeared quickly here, but made a fortune world wide. If China's cultural ministry wasn't so...ehhhh...Ghostbusters would probably have been a hit there too. On the one hand, China's involvement
is leading to a second Pacific Rim. You know the
good movie about giant robots which had a disappointing opening against "Adam Sandler has a vacation and acts like he did when he was 20 well into his 40's part 2?" On the other hand, Warcraft and Tarzan. Both would have quietly disappeared and would have been forgotten.
As far as the concern Sony wanted to make
any Ghostbusters movie,
that I totally agree is where the outrage lies. As I keep saying, I really don't think GB needed a follow up of any kind, especially considering that GB2 was a disappointing muddle of cartoony humor, character derailment, and wasted potential. Sure, the original cast was back and they acted the heck out of a meh script (that they wrote, which is
more disappointing). Even then, the only reason they got a follow up that time
was the same kind of cynicism that lead to one of three Ghostbusters movies that
weren't a direct sequel being made. It's clear that Sony was slowly pulling hairs out one by one in frustration that GB3 kept gaining traction, only to be derailed every time they had a solid start. Sure, we got the video game which was supposed to be an animated DTV film at some point which serves as the true third movie. And I agree. After Ramis passed, they said *&^% it, and made their own film(s) anyway. While I keep joking we could have got an Adam Sandler's Ghostbusters, I wouldn't be surprised if that was a possibility. And while I am looking forward to the animated one, Sony could have just made more money with more GB merchandising. Maybe a
decent Real Ghostbusters toyline instead of those meh 1970's style doll figures that were 20 bucks a pop.
But they wanted a movie, the third one wasn't being made fast enough, they made their own, but on the positive side, the film was not a direct sequel that retroactively ruined the original film, nor was it a prequel, same universe thing. I can't even give it the title "reboot" or "remake" instead of an "alternate universe spinoff" or a "what if." I hate the fact that the word "remake" is associated with "replace" (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was the only remake that replaced a forgotten flop) and "Reboot" is associated with "ignore the original" (though in the world of super hero based films it does, but only because by then the franchise either wildly gone off the rails). I think a lot of anger lies there as well. Like this film or not, it was a cash grab by Sony, and while the movie's probably going to lose some marketing cost, the money they're going to get from merchandising alone is going to more than make up for that.