Jason Reitman Is Directing 'Ghostbusters 3,' And It's All Your Fault
Jason Reitman, son of Ivan Reitman, will
be directing and co-writing yet another Ghostbusters movie (and there's already an announcement teaser). Unlike the Paul Feig-directed reboot from 2016 (which ignited a firestorm of online controversy for... uh... starring four women as Ghostbusters), this will be set in the same world as the first two
Ghostbusters movies, essentially acting as a long-threatened
Ghostbusters 3. The goal is to shoot the as-of-yet-uncasted movie this summer and make it Sony's big summer 2020 offering. Little is known about the film's plot (or who among the original cast will return), but an educated guess would presume another legacy sequel which combines new, young heroes with the original cast acting as mentors or elder statesmen. So, yeah,
Ghostbusters is going the route of
Creed ($173 million on a $35m budget),
The Force Awakens ($2 billion worldwide)and
Halloween ($250m/$10m).
To say that I have mixed feelings about this is an understatement. On one hand, you're rewarding a white male director whose last five movies bombed (and of those, only the two starring Charlize Theron and penned by Diablo Cody received positive reviews) the keys to a hugely valuable franchise mostly because he's the son of the guy who directed those first two
Ghostbusters movies. And yes, unintentional or not, you're essentially rewarding the specific demographics who reacted in the very worst way to the 2016
Ghostbusters reboot with the thing they claimed to want instead of the... horrors... all-female sci-fi comedy. And yet, we have only ourselves to blame. Studios aren't charities and they tend to want movies that attract moviegoers and make money.
To say that I have mixed feelings about this is an understatement. On one hand, you're rewarding a white male director whose last five movies bombed (and of those, only the two starring Charlize Theron and penned by Diablo Cody received positive reviews) the keys to a hugely valuable franchise mostly because he's the son of the guy who directed those first two
Ghostbusters movies. And yes, unintentional or not, you're essentially rewarding the specific demographics who reacted in the very worst way to the 2016
Ghostbusters reboot with the thing they claimed to want instead of the... horrors... all-female sci-fi comedy. And yet, we have only ourselves to blame. Studios aren't charities and they tend to want movies that attract moviegoers and make money.
'Tully'FOCUS FEATURES
Reitman's previous five movies (
Young Adult,
Labor Day, Men,
Women and Children,
Tully and
The Front Runner) bombed at least partially because the folks who complain that Hollywood doesn't make original or non-IP movies for adults didn't see those in theaters in the first place. When you ignore
(deep breath)
Money Monster, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk,
Life, Only the Brave,
Roman Israel, Esq. and
All the Money in the World and only flock to
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle ($962 million)and
Venom ($855m), well, here you go. When you don't show up for
Tomorrowland ($209m on a $190m budget) and
Queen of Katwe, you can't blame Walt Disney for overdosing on nostalgia-driven IP fare. As much as I might roll my eyes at the concept, a legacy sequel to
Ghostbusters makes sense in 2019.
The old-school reboot is essentially dead. Most of them didn't really spawn successful franchises. Even
Star Trek, Amazing Spider-Man and
Man of Steel were... at best, short-lived successes
. Moreover, the new-wave legacy sequel has mostly been financial (and critical) gold. The likes of
Jurassic World ($1.6 billion),
Creed ($173 million),
Mad Max: Fury Road ($370m),
Halloween ($250m)and
The Force Awakens ($2b) have earned mostly positive reviews, general fan approval and relatively successful box office results. Sure, there's also failed revamps like
Independence Day: Resurgence and
Terminator Gensisys, but the full-on reboot route has yielded far more failures along the lines of
Robin Hood, Robocop,
A Nightmare on Elm Street and
Total Recall. Kids don't care that a reboot is newbie-friendly while their parents want to see new movies set in the old continuity.
'Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle'SONY
Considering how many right choices, in terms of casting, concept and execution, that Sony made with
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and considering how halfway decent
Men in Black International looks, it stands to reason that Sony is at least going to try to fashion a movie that doesn't entirely depend on moviegoers caring about
Ghostbusters as an IP.
Jumanji 2 ($404 million domestic/$962m worldwide) had a fun cast (Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart and Jack Black), a strong hook (four kids get zapped into a video game and get turned into exaggerated video game avatars) and worked as its own stand-alone adventure comedy. It was also a straight sequel so folks weren't obsessing over whether it lived up to the 1995 Robin Williams movie.
Jason Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan (
Monster House) will have to look at the IP not as a crutch but as an obstacle to overcome. If they can offer a splashy cast (
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), at least some of the main cast returning to play (
The Force Awakens) and an interesting hook (
Jurassic World) that sounds interesting even to folks who don't necessarily need a
Ghostbusters 3, then Sony might have an easy lay-up on their hands. That's also assuming that they don't repeat Paul Feig's mistake of spending $144 million on a reboot with little overseas value and (as it turned out) no playdate in China (Sony was unable to get around China's issues with movies featuring the paranormal), but I'm presuming that this will cost closer to
Venom, Pixels and
Jumanji ($90m-$110m) than
Independence Day: Resurgence.
'Ghostbusters'SONY
Yes, if Bill Murray doesn't return, we could end up with another
Independence Day: Resurgence situation (where everyone came back except the big star), but that's where the budget comes in.
Independence Day: Resurgence made $370 million worldwide, which was terrible for a $165m-budgeted sequel to a movie that earned $821m back in 1996, but would have been just fine for a $90m sci-fi comedy. Say what you will about the Melissa McCarthy/Kristen Wiig/Leslie Jones/Kate McKinnon reboot (and I think the extended cut is about as good as the 1984 original and certainly better than the merely-okay
Ghostbusters II), but the film's $126m domestic/$229m worldwide cume would have been okay and sequel-worthy on a frugal $90m budget. Don't make the
Star Trek mistake of requiring MCU-worthy results.
The notion of Jason Reitman following up five straight adult-skewing flops with a sequel to his dad's classic 1980s comedy is every bit as "failing upward" cynical as it sounds. And the idea of giving the most disrespectful
Ghostbusters fanboys, like the ones who temporarily drove Leslie Jones off of Twitter, even a little of what they want is (unintentionally?) odious. But Sony is making a smart play, especially if they keep the budget in check. A legacy sequel/passing-the-torch installment to
Ghostbusters has the potential to break out like (relatively speaking)
Jurassic World, Creed,
The Force Awakens and
Halloween. And
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (as well as, presumably,
Men in Black International) shows that Sony may know how to juice their old IP in a way that appeals to the agnostic.
Jason Reitman's
Ghostbusters 3 (or whatever it ends up being called) will aim for a summer 2020 release date. I hate that this is happening. I hate that the misogynistic
Ghostbusters trolls (and if that's not you, then this isn't about you) are getting what they want. I hate that audiences are punishing Hollywood for still trying to release movies like
Only the Brave and
Tully even as they complain that Hollywood is nothing but sequels and reboots. But I won't pretend that Reitman isn't a talented filmmaker who makes more good movies than bad ones and that Sony hasn't shown an understanding of how to revive a property like this in the recent past. It worked with
Halloween, it worked with
Star Wars, and it may work with
Ghostbusters.
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