“Ghostbusters”: A Franchise in Need of Retirement

The iconic 80s franchise has made some attempts to rekindle its success in the last decade, but without success.

No matter how old you are, I dare say you’ve heard about the Ghostbusters. The first film, released in 1984, is, to this day, remembered fondly by plenty of people who consider it part of their childhoods and many more who discovered it growing up.

A number of projects based on that movie were produced over the years, including the most recent Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, released last month. But after all this time, is the franchise still worth it?

Development

The concept of Ghostbusters was conceived by Dan Aykroyd, inspired by his own interest in the paranormal. His first draft of the script, started in 1981, was conceived as a project for himself and John Belushi. It presented a group of scientists who could travel through time, space, and other dimensions to fight ghosts, something very different from what the film ended up being.

Following Belushi’s death in 1982, Aykroyd turned to another Saturday Night Live cast mate, Bill Murray, who read a half-completed version of the script, and showed interest in participating. He later took the script to Ivan Reitman, who, despite liking the idea, thought the budget for the special effects would be too big to be practical and so set it aside.

Aykroyd kept working on the script, and in early 1983, he sent Reitman the finished version. Reitman, still concerned about the cost, suggested setting the story on Earth instead of in different dimensions, focusing more on realism, and adding an origin to the Ghostbusters as a group. Harold Ramis, who would end up playing Egon Spangler, was hired to help with the rewriting of the film.

Shortly after, the script was pitched to Columbia Pictures, and it got a production budget of $30.000.000, a considerable number for the time.

Ghostbusters (1984)

The film revolves around Peter Venkman (Murray), Ray Stantz (Aykroyd) and Egon Spangler (Ramis), three parapsychology professors who are fired from their research jobs at Columbia University, and decide to establish a ghost-investigating and capturing service, “Ghostbusters”. The team is later joined by Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) and Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts).

While investigating a complex case for a client, Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), they discover that a powerful demon, Gozer, is threatening to destroy the city, and they are the only ones who can stop it.

It was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $295.000.000 at the box office. Ghostbusters was praised for its funny performances and special effects, becoming a cult classic instantly.

After that, a sequel was only a matter of time.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

Set five years after the events of the first films, the Ghostbusters’ popularity has decayed, and all the members have to earn a living doing different jobs. When a new paranormal threat emerges, they have to reunite to combat it and save the world once more.

The whole cast came back for the sequel; Aykroyd and Ramis were once again in charge of the script, with Reitman directing. But this time around, the critical reception was mostly negative. 

The film was considered to lack the imagination and originality of its predecessor, and it underperformed at the box office.

Personally, while I agree the plot was a little deficient, I don’t think the movie was as bad as I’ve heard. I had a lot of fun watching it. 

But this misstep stalled the franchise’s development. Even though merchandise, video games, board games, comic books, and animated TV series were produced through the years, a third film was never made, despite Aykroyd and Reitman’s plans.

Following Ramis death in 2014, the team decided to no longer pursue a potential continuation of the original films. Reitman, Aykroyd, and Murray agreed to sell the rights to Columbia Pictures, so more projects could be made. In 2015, Aykroyd and Reitman set up the company Ghost Corps to oversee the Ghostbusters media franchise and create a cinematic universe, expanding the brand into film and TV products. This new phase started with a reboot that would be released in 2016.

The Failed Reboot: Female Ghostbusters (2016)

For context, we should remember that this film was released close to the time of the MeToo movement and falls into all the feminist tropes and vices that, sadly, would become the norm in the following years. It doesn’t give the impression of being a tribute, but rather a mockery of the originals.

The idea was to create the same group dynamics that had worked for the first movies, only replacing the characters with women and giving it a “modern perspective” for the “modern audience”. We are introduced to Dr. Abigail Yates (Melissa McCarthy) and Dr. Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), two scientists that once devoted their careers to the study of the paranormal. Their friendship is broken after Erin decides to give up and search for success in a more serious field.

A strange event in a museum brings them back together. Dr. Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), Abigail’s investigation partner, is the one in charge of creating all the cool weapons and traps to capture ghosts. I suppose it was a twisted “recreation” of Egon Spangler’s character. The team is completed by Patricia Tolan (Leslie Jones), an MTA staffer who happens to see a ghost in the subway. She is an outsider who ends up involved in the ghostbusters’ business, much like Winston Zeddemore.

Simply Replacing Men Does Not Work

Three of these women are scientists, but it’s hard to understand how that happened: all of them are stupid. They behave and talk childishly, even though they are supposed to be in their thirties. The humor is embarrasing. The original films had this quirky and silly sense of humor, but it relied largely on the actors’ charisma, especially Murray and Aykroyd . These actresses are incapable of achieving the same effect, and their poor attempts at being crazy and unfiltered result in ridiculous and over-the-top performances. They look like your middle-aged single aunt when she gets drunk on New Year’s Eve. It’s not funny; it’s uncomfortable. You want her to go away. If the idea was to empower women and show they are just as capable as men…it wasn’t a very good job.

Then of course, we have a male character who is an idiot, because all men are idiots, especially if they are good-looking. So Chris Hemsworth becomes laughingstock for two hours. It is made clear that his only good attribute is that he goes to the gym, and that is the only reason why Erin is lusting after him.

The villain is, you guessed it, a man, and one who has been traumatized by bullying. Basically, a loser who becomes evil out of resentment with the world and who is also not very smart.

The film has a lot of references to the original material, including cameos from original cast members such as Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Sigourney Weaver. However, the terrible performances, the bad special effects, and a script full of lousy jokes that establish no real story made this Ghostbusters project a flop that will be remembered. With a production budget of $179.000.000, it only grossed a sad $285.000.000 worldwide.

However, if you ask the actresses or creatives involved why the film failed, they will tell you it was the patriarchy’s fault.

Return to the Original Line: Afterlife and Frozen Empire.

To be completely honest, when I watched Frozen Empire in theaters a month ago, I was convinced it was a new reboot. I had not watched Afterlife, and I had no idea it even existed. The new films are a sequel to Ghostbusters II, and they revolve around the lives of Callie, Egon Spangler’s daughter, and her kids, Phoebe and Trevor. They discover their relative’s past and become involved in the ghost hunting business themselves.

Afterlife is set in a small town, where Egon had been living until his sudden death, and where many strange things had been going on. It’s revealed he hasn’t had any contact with his daughter ever since she was a child, after leaving the Ghostbuster team on bad terms. His disappearance is later explained, and these scenes are a form of tribute to actor Harold Ramin. Another curious detail is that this film was directed by Jason Reitman, Ivan’s son.

In Frozen Empire, the characters move to New York to take ownership of the famous firehouse, and live adventures in the city.

Nothing New or Interesting

Despite making a big effort to appeal to the audience’s nostalgia, neither of those two films offers anything new or innovative. The best they can do is repeat things that have already been done in previous projects, but with better special effects. For example, the couple being possessed by two different demons that need to come together to awaken Gozer is an exact replica of what happened in the original. A copy. The film insists on feeding us scenes where Phoebe looks all cool and badass shooting from the moving car (many times, in fact), but that is all there is: looks.

The original actors have cameos each time, as a last-minute solution to the new characters’ problems. Maybe if they had developed some sort of “passing the torch” storyline where the older adults train the teenagers to take over their life’s work, it could have been more interesting.

The box office results have been kinder with these new Ghostbusters, at least compared to the 2016 reboot, but not extraordinary.

Annoying Characters

The original Ghostbusters had charismatic characters, a fact that contributed to their success. But not anymore.

As it is becoming usual in productions, characters fall into at least one of two categories: they are insufferably annoying, or they have no discernible personality nor function in the story. And as it’s also usual, the adult characters are useless.

Phoebe, played by McKenna Grace, is basically the protagonist of the new franchise. Her only personality trait is that she is a “genius”. She is interested in science and has an unrealistic amount of knowledge on the subject for a young teen. Because we need women in STEM, you know. Phoebe wastes no opportunity to let everyone around her know she is smarter and more mature than them, but she behaves as a selfish and bratty kid. I guess the intention was to make her personality resemble Egon’s, as they are related, but in the context of the film, she is just deeply unlikable. Although this is bothersome enough in Afterlife, it gets even worse in Frozen Empire. The second part sees Phoebe getting into a kind of romance with the ghost of a teenage girl. Because we need rainbow representation, you know.

Finn Wolfhard plays Trevor, a character that doesn’t add much to the plot, and has no development. His only personal storyline is having a romance with Lucky in Afterlife, but it ends up going nowhere.

The character with more potential to be interesting was Callie, played by Carrie Coon. At the beginning of the first film, she is in a bad economic situation, and she has two teenagers to take care of on her own. When she moves to her father’s house, she goes through the process of understanding his departure from her life and discovers that, even though Egon couldn’t be around, she was always in his mind. But that aside, there’s not a lot to like about her. Her relationship with her kids is not great, and she doesn’t really behave like a mom. Also during Afterlife, she gets involved with Gary Grooverson (Paul Rudd), her daughter’s science teacher, another adult who has no idea how to make the kids respect him. This is important because as their relationship becomes more serious, he will start to become more of a father figure to her children, in particular to Phoebe.

The supporting characters are not very interesting either. So there’s no one that you can get attached to or sympathize with. In fact, nothing makes you want to keep watching.

Why so Insistent?

One thing is evident: The audience’s interest in the franchise has decreased. If we compare the worldwide box office of all five Ghostbusters films, the numbers are eloquent enough: Each film is making less than its predecessor. Frozen Empire is still in theaters, so its results may change, but so far, it hasn’t reached $200,000,000 in the six weeks since its release. The original Ghostbusters made over $295.000.000 during its run, which, adjusted for inflation, is around $948.000.000. The difference is huge.

And why is that? I believe there are a few reasons.

In the first place, the entertainment industry has destroyed so many famous IPs in its desperation to earn money without making the effort to create anything that the audience doesn’t trust them anymore. Why would they?

If you’ve been paying attention for the past decade, you must be aware of what happened to long-established franchises and beloved properties, such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Harry Potter, just to name a few. A number of prequels, sequels, and remakes had been produced, eager to capitalize on people’s nostalgia, but also to fix “mistakes” and check diversity boxes. The only box they usually forget to check is the one that reads “quality”.

While I don’t believe the two last installments of this franchise are the worst in terms of forced inclusivity and representation, and the general quality is not terrible (Afterlife is fine overall) I find them completely devoid of heart. There’s nothing memorable or special about them.

The 80s Are Out Again

When it comes to the younger audience, the popularity of the series Stranger Things has brought back many of the 80s trends since its release in 2016. This allowed properties like Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, or The Never-ending Story to be discovered by kids and teenagers. But it was just that: a trend of the moment. Material to make some cool 80s-themed t-shirts. I don’t believe most of the kids even truly liked those movies in the first place. And in an era where social media is pushing new content every week, it becomes harder for trends to survive more than a few days. The 80s moment has passed. Now it’s the 2000s.

The people who could be more interested in new Ghostbusters movies—that is to say, the ones who watched the films in the 80s—probably won’t get invested in a story about bratty teenagers, with just a small cameo of the real Ghostbusters.

Time To Move On

And speaking in a more general way, having watched the original films and comparing them to the new ones, it’s easy to see why they don’t hit the same. In 1984, the story was fresh, the concept, the costumes, and the ghost hunting equipment were innovative, and the special effects were something impressive. That is not enough to capture audiences anymore. We’ve already seen films with great special effects and plenty of science fiction and fantasy ideas.

But even though the special effects of the 80s were nothing compared to current times, Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II managed to be more entertaining and interesting than anything produced in recent years. The easiest way to sum it up is that the films were a product of their time. No matter how much Hollywood insists, they won’t be able to recreate that impact. Especially with modern audiences, they couldn’t care less.

Of course, some (only some) old EPs can be successfully revived, but for that, you need creatives with talent, and that is particularly what Tinseltown is lacking right now. A 2024 full of content related to famous IPs is proof that they just refuse to learn.

I understand and admire Aykroyd’s initiative to expand what has been his passion project for decades, but I’m afraid he couldn’t have picked a worse time to do that. The smartest move right now will be to just let these properties have a well-deserved rest.