Dan Aykroyd clarified his comments about last year’s Ghostbusters, while Sony responded to his initial statements, made on a British TV show, criticizing director Paul Feig, particularly about costly reshoots Aykroyd claimed killed any possibility of further Ghostbusters sequels.
Last year’s Ghostbusters reboot was supposed to be the start of an entire new franchise (or perhaps even a universe of franchises) around the venerable ’80s horror comedy. Sony Pictures, which owns the rights to bust ghosts on the big screen, even created this new production company, Ghost Corps, to lead the charge on all these various efforts. There was talk of an all-male Ghostbusters to accompany the all-female team we got from director Paul Feig. And a new cartoon series was put into development as well. But since the movie opened to just so-so reviews and box office last year, developments on this front have been as quiet as Spook Central after a total protonic reversal.
We owe a lot to scientists — they cured polio, got us on the moon, and they‘re doing their darnedest to stop us from methodically killing the planet. But man, what a bunch of nerds. It seems like every time biologists discover a new species of animal and need to give it a name, they take the opportunity to bust out a reference to their favorite bit of geek-approved pop culture. Lest we forget the velvet worm named after My Neighbor Totoro, and we’d be remiss to overlook the euglossa bazinga, a rare bee with a Big Bang Theory catchphrase as its namesake. And it appears that now the nerds are at it again.
While last summer’s Ghostbusters didn’t get off to a very auspicious start, due to “My childhood!”-wailing Internet trolls and bad box office numbers coupled with the fact that the movie has its hilarious moments but was just fine overall, that doesn’t mean we’ll never see Gilbert, Patty, Yates, and Holtzmann onscreen again. In fact, the studio has a number of films in development, according to Ghostbusters’ producer Ivan Reitman (who also produced the 1984 version).
The Internet Movie Database is a fount of helpful information. With a few simple clicks, users can learn who shot the Miley Cyrus vehicle So Undercover (Things to Come cinematographer Denis Lenoir), which sequel in the Hellraiser franchise featured a performance from a young Adam Scott (the fourth one), or how old Taraji P. Henson is (who looks that good at 46?!). As a repository for loose factoids from in and around the world of screen entertainment, it can’t be beat. As a source for critical perspectives on those same films, however... hoo boy. Just take a gander at any comment section for a movie’s page and marvel at the IMDb is the site where rabid anti-Ghostbusters zealots congregated to downvote Paul Feig’s movie into oblivion weeks before its actual release, and the newly-released IMDb Top 10 provides an even clearer view of its user base.
Just last month, Sony exec Rory Bruer said he had “no doubt” that the studio would move forward with a sequel to Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot. That was then, this is now: The all-female reimagining of the 1984 classic has made $180 million at the global box office, which isn’t enough to justify Sony’s production and marketing costs…or a sequel, for that matter.
Paul Feig is best known for his original comedies, a filmmaker who’s brought the talents of female comedy actresses into the spotlight. But after rebooting ‘Ghostbusters’ with an all-female cast, Feig says he’ll return to original stories instead making another reboot.