GhostBusters 3 is Finally Being Made. (2020 Release)

I keep seeing everyone say that Ghostbusters II was a steaming pile through and through, but I can't see it that way. It has the original cast, a great concept and story, and the production values are top notch. The real problem is studio meddling, which is why all the brilliant production design for props, sets, etc. from the first film are now all stupid, cartoon-centric and clunky, and get in the way. It's also responsible for all the over the top slapstick humor that the first film was so subtle with. I'd put money on the idea that if they'd been able to make the movie with the same script, but without all the meddling, it would have been a lot better.

 

Hopefully this will be good. Ghost Busters is my all time favorite film and I've warmed up to Ghostbusters II over the years. I didn't completely hate the reboot, in fact, Kate McKinnon's Jillian Holtzmann ranks as one of my top three favorite Ghostbusters. It just wasn't creepy or funny like the original. And the "jokes" were stretched out waaaaaayyyyy too long.

But I'm open to the idea of a continuation of Ghostbusters II. It's sad Harold Ramis won't be in it, but if it's a passing of the torch type movie like The Force Awakens, I'll be interested in seeing who they get for the new crew. Also it's cool that for a next gen GB movie that Ivan Reitman's son Jason is helming it

 

I would've loved if Oscar had been the offspring of Vinz Clortho and Zuul, but, unless demon spawn babies take four years to incubate, I don't think he is

 

If only the 2016 film had an empty field, abandoned barn, and a tarp covering part of Ecto-1. People would have loved seeing a real Ghostbusters movie.

 

Am I the only one who thinks we might see a crossover with the 2016 film? Even though I think the 2016 film is terrible I am still a fan of all the actors in it and I would love to see those actors get a another shot only hopefully with a better script this time around. I know it doesn't exist in the same canon but you always have alternate universe' to explain it away. Seeing the old team have to team with the new one could be fun. Plus I know Egon will be missed but I would maybe replace him with RIck Moranis coming back as Louis and sort of replacing him on the team.

Jason

 

That's me too.

I was fine with it as well. It just wasn't a movie I could get through either.

 

I just checked IMDB - apparently one of the twins who played Oscar (both were John Denver's nephews, BTW) killed himself a couple of years ago.

Also, the actor who played Vigo got pissed and stormed out of the premier when he found out that all of his lines were overdubbed (by Max von Sydow).

I didn't care much for GB2, either, but it was all worth it just for Peter MacNicol's character.

 

They've actually done two crossovers so far in the comics, one with just the original movies' characters and the reboot's character, and then one with those two, The Real Ghostbusters, and whole bunch of other alternate universe teams.

 

Man you would have thought someone would have told that actor way before the premier about his lines being dubbed. That's like telling someone you don't want to get married at the alter.


Jason

 

The 2016 reboot was, of course, a "real Ghostbusters movie." It was a movie with a very different tone and style from the original, which is a legitimate artistic choice, and it happened to be a crappy execution of its own direction, but that's beside the point.

Obviously, empty fields, barns, and tarps don't add up to a bit of "original Ghostbusters flavor." It's how one lights, shoots, and scores things that create a tone.

 

The reboot is a decent comedy. It’s not the original Ghostbusters because nothing will be, not even the sequel made by the exact same people. You can’t compare them.

 

Eh, I was just tweaking you.

 

Well see, as soon as you have to go to blaming someone or another as "the real problem" you've conceded that the thing didn't work.

It was just a contrived, unfunny attempt to do the first film again. Reset the characters - who were heroes at the end of the first movie, and two of them in a relationship - concoct a preposterous threat and climax with a giant inanimate icon lumbering down the streets of New York.

Not good, not funny.

 

Everyone will shout "NO!" but of course it's more likely than not that there will be a nod or two to it.

 

I can't lie: seeing Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd pal around on screen, even for a few minutes, that's a nostalgia factor worth a couple of bucks, so I'd certainly see it (though on DVD or something like that).

 

I agree. GB2 was an awful waste of a great cast. They were hamstrung by a bad script which made abundantly clear that Akroyd ran out of ideas after the original script. In GB2, they actually made the joke, "there's always room for Jello". Same problem with the 2016 version, great cast, dull script.

Speaking of which, did I miss the identity of the script writer for this new movie? If Murray is involved (as an actor) then I'm encouraged that the script must be pretty good, OR they offered him enough money for him to ignore that aspect of the movie.

That would have to be a huge crap load of money.

 

Approval doesn't mean involvement. Approval could mean, "Sure, that's cool, go do it."

 

Thank You for Smoking. I actually really enjoyed it. And while it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, I got a lot of quality laughs from Young Adult.

Personally, I'm quite fond of most of the 2016 cast & crew from other things. Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig, & Cecily Strong have all done fantastic work on Saturday Night Live. And I really enjoyed Paul Feig's previous team-up with Melissa McCarthy in Spy. But Ghostbusters was just a complete waste of all of their talents. Jones was just doing "generic loud black woman," a far cry from her more personal-feeling SNL work. McCarthy seemed to be making a deliberate choice to not do her standard "angry crass woman" schtick from all of her other movies but didn't really replace it with anything else, so she was just adrift. Wiig was kinda working for me as the straight-woman until her over-the-top screaming at the mayor to evacuate the city. McKinnon was funny but I think could have been even funnier if they had made her character weirder; like, Harpo Marx weird. (Speaking of, I loved Sigourney Weaver's mid-credits cameo as McKinnon's mentor. I wish that she'd been in the whole movie.) Honestly, the only performance that completely worked for me was Chris Hemsworth, who just had some killer one-liners as the ultimate mimbo!

Yeah, much like Indiana Jones, I think Ghostbusters was setting themselves up for failure by trying to make a new installment any time after 1996. Filmmaking techniques just changed so much that it would be impossible for any later installments to capture the flavor that people had come to expect from the originals.

While I haven't seen Into the Spider-verse yet, I tend to agree. Putting it into a different format would help to paper over the fact that a 2020 incarnation is destined to feel vastly different from the 1980s originals.

Plus, let's be honest, how many of us first became fans of the property thanks to the cartoon?

What would really get me excited is if they could work out the rights issues to do an animated crossover movie between Ghostbusters & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

About 16 years ago, I worked on a play with a guy who worked as the sound designer on Ghostbusters 2. He was pretty pissed at the studio because most of his work ended up getting buried in the mix by the music.

Personally, while I'm a huge apologist for Ghostbusters 2, I would say that there's probably no truly compelling reason for it to exist. I'm glad that it does and I think that it gets way more flack than it deserves. But I acknowledge that it's basically just the first movie done over again. That's OK. The first movie was great and featured some fun characters that I very much enjoyed seeing again.

But I think that gets to the heart of why another Ghostbusters movie is easier said than done. The first movie's success has little to do with the premise and more to do with a bunch of really funny actors at the peak of their comedic powers playing funny characters. Ghostbusters 2 got some mileage out of just trotting out that same cast and making them do similar stuff. But the problem with a new cast, whether it's set in the original continuity or the 2016 reboot, is that you basically have to build the whole thing from scratch again.

That's not to say that there's absolutely zero value in the premise by itself but I think that's why it works better as an animated adventure cartoon series for kids rather than as a big budget live action feature film. I'm honestly surprised that there hasn't been more effort to do another Ghostbusters cartoon series, particularly in this reboot-happy age that's already given us remakes of Duck Tales, She-ra, Thundercats, not to mention rebooting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, & My Little Pony every decade or so.

I always thought that it would have been fun to have the 2016 movie make some vague references to Melissa McCarthy's dead father; then in the post-credits sequence, Holtzmann would open up a dimensional portal, they'd see Ray on the other side fiddling with his own dimensional portal, and then McCarthy would take one look at him and say, "Dad?" (Cut to black.)

I also enjoyed Harris Yulin as the judge. Yulin is a great actor that we don't see often enough but I've enjoyed a bunch of his TV guest appearances over the years: Quentin Travers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a mobster who helped Maris get out of a bunch of traffic tickets on Frasier, and most powerfully as Amin Marritza, the guilt-ridden Cardassian file clerk in DS9's "Duet."

 

I'm skeptical this is actually happening but I'm very interested in what develops.

I barely saw it but didn't Extreme Ghostbusters have a whole new team with Egon as a mentor? I know Egon is gone but maybe Ray and Winston can be the new mentors and Peter can come back as a green, slimy ghost?