Ghostbusters 2016: Talk about the movie(s).

[Servo]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

The cynic in me would be very surprised if the casting wasn't a ploy to drum up controversy and publicity on the internet, but the optimist in me is hoping they just have a good story to tell.

Sony will most likely drop $150-200M on this movie. Feig has cast who he's cast because McCarthy and Wiig at least have some degree of name recognition/bankability, and because he thinks the two of them along with McKinnon and Jones will perform the best with the script that's been developed. Only an imbecile would cast people for their "trolling the fanboys" value.

Of course, and I was being a bit facetious with my original comment, but you'd have to be naive to think that fan reaction to the idea wasn't discussed at some level. Hell, I'd even wager that the sentence "this is probably going to piss a lot of fanboys off" was uttered by someone during the course of development. Likely more than once.

 

[Amaris]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

The cynic in me would be very surprised if the casting wasn't a ploy to drum up controversy and publicity on the internet, but the optimist in me is hoping they just have a good story to tell.

Sony will most likely drop $150-200M on this movie. Feig has cast who he's cast because McCarthy and Wiig at least have some degree of name recognition/bankability, and because he thinks the two of them along with McKinnon and Jones will perform the best with the script that's been developed. Only an imbecile would cast people for their "trolling the fanboys" value.

Of course, and I was being a bit facetious with my original comment, but you'd have to be naive to think that fan reaction to the idea wasn't discussed at some level. He'll, I'd even wager that the sentence "this is probably going to piss a lot of fanboys off" was uttered by someone during the course of development. Likely more than once.

Yeah, but in the age of the internet, when doesn't that happen?

 

[Servo]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Sony will most likely drop $150-200M on this movie. Feig has cast who he's cast because McCarthy and Wiig at least have some degree of name recognition/bankability, and because he thinks the two of them along with McKinnon and Jones will perform the best with the script that's been developed. Only an imbecile would cast people for their "trolling the fanboys" value.

Of course, and I was being a bit facetious with my original comment, but you'd have to be naive to think that fan reaction to the idea wasn't discussed at some level. He'll, I'd even wager that the sentence "this is probably going to piss a lot of fanboys off" was uttered by someone during the course of development. Likely more than once.

Yeah, but in the age of the internet, when doesn't that happen?

True enough, but that kind of reinforces my point. Fan reaction is something everyone has come to expect these days, now that the internet has given those fans a platform, so the people involved in this film would have known this news would provoke strong reactions. Good way to take something that has been languishing in development hell for years and generate a whole lot of internet chatter and momentum. I just hope they can back it up with a good story and good characters.

 

[Amaris]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

True enough, but that kind of reinforces my point. Fan reaction is something everyone has come to expect these days, now that the internet has given those fans a platform, so the people involved in this film would have known this news would provoke strong reactions. Good way to take something that has been languishing in development hell for years and generate a whole lot of internet chatter and momentum. I just hope they can back it up with a good story and good characters.

I want it to be great. I want it to make piles of money, and be critically successful. I won't hold my personal expectations too high, because that's a quick way to see a good movie and still be disappointed, but I want it to succeed. These are genuinely funny, talented women. They deserve a movie where they can shine. I want this to be it.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

And just because a new job comes up doesn't mean that it will suddenly break a lot of gender barriers.

A completely new industry, such as ghostbusting would be, would by definition have no gender barriers, or prejudiced-based barriers of any kind, other than those reflected by the first group of partners. The first outfit would get to partner with and hire whomever they believe to be qualified.

Quite often the first group of partners in a corporation are previously acquainted with each other, such as our heroes were in GB1....

 

[Timby]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Basically, the more distance this movie puts between it and the gestalt entity that is "The Ghostbusters Universe" (kill me), the better it will be, and it seems they're going for it.

There's no reason to be anything but optimistic at this stage.

The next 18 months of fanboys whining about not using the Ecto-1 or the Classic Original Universe Mark 1 Proton Packs is going to cause me an aneurysm or a massive Facebook purge, though.

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Yeah, but in the age of the internet, when doesn't that happen?

Exactly. I would assume that everybody in the business just accepts it as an inevitable part of the process by now, especially if you're doing a high-profile update or adaptation of some "iconic" property.

If I was a director or studio executive planning a new version of, say, MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN, I would take it for granted that at some point the internet would be in an uproar and insisting that the movie was "obviously" getting everything wrong and was going to be a total flop. Then I would shrug and get on with making the best movie or TV show I could.

Internet tempests come with the territory these days.

In the end, if the final product is good, nobody remembers all the complaints about the organic web-shooters, or that Starbuck is a woman, or that the Ghostbusters aren't men anymore . . . .

 

[Amaris]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Amen. Oh, and on an unrelated note, I would be over the moon if they fit Lily Tomlin into this film somewhere.

 

[BillJ]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Sounds like it could be a fun movie.

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Okay, this is too good not to share:

http://jezebel.com/new-all-feminist-ghostbusters-is-a-punch-in-the-dick-to-1682292125

 

[ITL]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Okay, this is too good not to share:

http://jezebel.com/new-all-feminist-ghostbusters-is-a-punch-in-the-dick-to-1682292125

That is so excellent it should be baked into a pie.

 

[Reverend]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Okay, this is too good not to share:

http://jezebel.com/new-all-feminist-ghostbusters-is-a-punch-in-the-dick-to-1682292125

It says a lot about the state of discourse on the internet these days that I actually had to ask myself for a second "is this satire, or is this for real?"

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

I can't wait for the next year and change of people assuming they already know exactly what the movie's going to be.

That's why my eyes start rolling at warp speed when I see people already pigeonholing people and characters. "So and so is obviously the Ray, so and so is the Peter, who's going to be Dana and Walter Peck?" Why the fuck would you even want that? That's how you wind up looking like a cheap imitation of the original.

I'll put it this way: I am infinitely more hopeful for what Feig and Dippold are going to put together than whatever dogshit Ramis, Aykroyd, Eisenberg, Stupnitsky and Cohen had come up with over the past fifteen years, because at least it's something new rather than trying to draw blood from a stone and desperately hoping Bill Murray would change his mind.

The next 18 months of fanboys whining about not using the Ecto-1 or the Classic Original Universe Mark 1 Proton Packs is going to cause me an aneurysm or a massive Facebook purge, though.

You're complaining about it more than these supposed people are!

 

[Scout101]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Not mad that they are women, more mad that the rumor is that it will be set prior to the original and not a follow up

 

[Aldo]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Which makes me glad that Wiig, Jones, and McKinnon are on board, because they have past experience with each other (or at least concentric circles of experience) all from SNL. I'm still iffy on McCarthy, but like Wiig she has Second City experience as well.

I've been out of the loop on SNL for several years because I only just picked it back up this year, but did Wiig and McKinnon ever overlap? I just assumed she left before McKinnon and Jones showed up.

Which doesn't account for the fact that Wiig has returned several times just for the hell of it, so what I said is pretty moot anyways.

But I definitely agree with your point that it's nice the cast has previously worked together, should make for some nice chemistry in the film.

 

[Amaris]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Okay, this is too good not to share:

http://jezebel.com/new-all-feminist-ghostbusters-is-a-punch-in-the-dick-to-1682292125

That is a thing of beauty. Superbly done!

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Paul Feig reveals cast on Twitter. The new Ghostbusters:

Kristen Wiig
Melissa McCarthy
Leslie Jones
Kate McKinnon

McCarthy though is supposedly the only one is has officially signed on, but the other three are supposedly expected to sign on as well.

That's a pretty SNL heavy cast. Jones and McKinnon are both current SNL cast members, and Wiig is a former.

Great cast. The writing on SNL has been pretty mediocre in recent years, but that shouldn't be a knock on current castmembers McKinnon and Jones, who are great.

McKinnon is sort of the replacement all-purpose player since Wiig left the cast, both being able to do a wide variety of voices, imitations, and original characters. While I found most of Wiig's characters forgettable, I always thought she was extremely talented. But McKinnon has both better characters and the ability to elevate a poorly written character into something special and noticeable.

Jones doesn't always do great at live sketches, and has sort of been typecast on the show as the angry wife/mother, but when they essentially let her do her stand-up on Weekend Update, she's hilarious. She was also very good with a proper script and time to prepare in the recent (and quite good) Chris Rock film Top Five, so I look forward to her performance in this film.

I do agree that McCarthy has unfortunately been stuck in the rut of being the butt of fat jokes, which may not be her fault as that may be all she's been offered. I hope they avoid relying too heavily on that in Ghostbusters, because I think she's very talented and has a lot more to offer.

Wiig is extremely talented and versatile, doing well with drama and comedy in the recent (and very dark) Skeleton Twins.

All in all, it's a promising cast. I look forward to seeing what they can do.

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Not mad that they are women, more mad that the rumor is that it will be set prior to the original and not a follow up

I would just operate on the assumption that this is a whole new continuity and not worry about how it connects to the original, which was, after all, thirty years ago.

To put that in perspective, that's two years longer than the amount of time between the 1958 version of THE FLY (with Vincent Price) and the 1986 remake with Jeff Goldblum.

And, you know, I don't remembering anybody complaining that the 1986 FLY wasn't set in the same continuity as the original movies and didn't pick up where CURSE OF THE FLY left off in 1965 . . . .

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Okay, this is too good not to share:

http://jezebel.com/new-all-feminist-ghostbusters-is-a-punch-in-the-dick-to-1682292125

That is so excellent it should be baked into a pie.

Or made into a sandwich.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Re: Ghostbusters reboot: We're (almost, maybe, sorta) ready to believe

Taking a job that would seem largely oriented toward men and casting it all with women though adds a whole other level to that gimmick.

We're constructing arbitrary glass ceilings on completely fictional careers now too? Jesus.

Besides, women have been ghostbusting since 1982, and were more successful at it than their male counterparts.