New Ghostbusters movie in OG movie universe Jason Reitman directing 2020

[Wildcat]

Ya it works alright.

I forgot to mention Sigourney Weaver...

Spoiler:

Her “scene” just felt like a comedy sketch. Like they just filmed that for fun. Was that really all they want her for?

A better part for her would have been if she arranged for them to meet up in Summerville or something. Anything. Annie Potts only appears briefly but she actually had a role.

[Andrew NDB]

Spoiler:

Definitely Sigourney's part was a letdown. As i ruminated earlier... it appears to only exist as some kind of afterthought to "correct" something "problematic" about GB1. I giggled in it, but it definitely wasn't anything close to what it should have been.

I was kind of hoping the fake spoilers about her pulling up with the guys and her own jumpsuit would have been true. Show her and Venkman still being lovey, wedding bands on both in the Gozer fight (and she has a very personal stake in the Gozer fight) and maybe a funny moment or two with her and the new Gatekeeper... that would have been enough.

[Wildcat]

I avoided everything about the movie for the last week but ya that fake spoiler would have been cool.

Spoiler:

So I’m assuming that the original 3 kept their equipment and jumpsuit since they didn’t meet everyone else before.

I know Ray mentioned that Egon took everything when he moved away but they clearly did not get there, suit up and hide until that very moment.

Which is cool. To imagine in there everyday lives they each have their proton packs in storage.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Spoiler:

Definitely Sigourney's part was a letdown. As i ruminated earlier... it appears to only exist as some kind of afterthought to "correct" something "problematic" about GB1. I giggled in it, but it definitely wasn't anything close to what it should have been.

I was kind of hoping the fake spoilers about her pulling up with the guys and her own jumpsuit would have been true. Show her and Venkman still being lovey, wedding bands on both in the Gozer fight (and she has a very personal stake in the Gozer fight) and maybe a funny moment or two with her and the new Gatekeeper... that would have been enough.

GB: The Videogame revealed her to be a Shandor descendant, right?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

GB: The Videogame revealed her to be a Shandor descendant, right?

No, it revealed Alyssa was.

[Andrew NDB]

So a 75 million dollar budget, made 112 domestically and 52 more overseas for a total of 164.

Eh. That's not exactly kicking in the door "Ghostbusters are back!!!" kind of numbers. It's also not a flop. But it's barely not a flop. Unless they go real tiny in scope for a sequel I'd not really expect one, at this point.

[sdp]

looks like I was right all those pages ago where I got told this wasn't going to happen, ghostbusters just isn't a viable franchise in today's world, it should've been left alone in the 80s. The more these reboots and remakes flop the less we'll get of them and we'll get new franchises to care about instead of rehashing old ideas. I mean I know it takes them a while to get the point, Terminator got 3 tries but I doubt there will ever be a fourth try, at least not for a few decades.

[CyberCubed]

I'll watch it when it comes out on the streaming websites.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by sdp

looks like I was right all those pages ago where I got told this wasn't going to happen, ghostbusters just isn't a viable franchise in today's world

Well, we'll never know what would've happened if we'd never gotten GB2016 first. That may have poisoned the well. And perhaps it'll do gangbusters on VOD from all the people still terrified to go to the movie theater for some reason. It's a whole large stream of revenue and unique condition that GB2016 didn't have.

[Wildcat]

It took 30 years to get a third part, it’s done well given the virus and delays and it was apparently greenlit when the reboot was out.

It’s also gotten a lot of praise and other seemingly unlikely movies have been made before...including this (I personally never doubted it, ever).

You can guarantee we would have been on part 5 by now if not for Bill Murray and whatever else might have held it back.

There’s no way they do not make a GB4 or whatever it’s named. Certainly not another decades long hiatus.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

There’s no way they do not make a GB4 or whatever it’s named. Certainly not another decades long hiatus.

It'll be announced in the next 2 or 3 months or so (after soaking up some VOD numbers) or it's not coming at all.

It took 30 years to get a third part, it’s done well given the virus and delays and it was apparently greenlit when the reboot was out.

Not greenlit, "put into "development." Two very different things.

But yeah. I mean, with half the budget, GBA did allllmost as good as GB2016, even in the middle of a (artificially extended) COVID pandemic. Like even if we make a conservative estimate and say that had GBA come out with no trace of a pandemic, maybe it would get 45% more box office (which seems to track with the results of most polls about "Do you feel safe to go back to the movie theater?"). That would be gangbusters. That would be huge. That's why I say that let's and and see on what happens with VOD sales/rentals.

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

It'll be announced in the next 2 or 3 months or so (after soaking up some VOD numbers) or it's not coming at all.

Not greenlit, "put into "development." Two very different things.

But yeah. I mean, with half the budget, GBA did allllmost as good as GB2016, even in the middle of an (artificially extended) COVID pandemic. Like even if we make a conservative estimate and say that had GBA come out with no trace of a pandemic, maybe it would get 45% more box office (which seems to track with the results of most polls about "Do you feel safe to go back to the movie theater?"). That would be gangbusters. That would be huge. That's why I say that let's and and see on what happens with VOD sales/rentals.

I’d have to find it but they put it into development (whether that’s defined as greenlit or not) during all the negativity surrounding the reboot. Nobody could have guessed that.

I also forgot Jason Reitman and his co-writer Gil Kenan signed a producing deal with Sony recently. That’s not a coincidence.

Unless they put it into production next year I’m not expecting an announcement that soon. Maybe, Sonic 2 was. I’m just expecting another one in general. In a normal, reasonable time frame.

[Leo656]

Let's not forget all the critics trying their hardest to scare people away from it with their awful "reviews". That undoubtedly hurt the box office.

Like it or not, those people have actual power. Idiots (read: "Most people") see that number percentage on RT and think it means anything. "Under 80%? Ehhhhh, must not be any good," and they don't watch whatever the movie is. Happens every day, more and more.

Everyone SAYS "I don't care about critics or reviews, I make up my own mind," but most of those people are completely lying. At some point or other, you'll inevitably catch one of them using RT scores as a way to shore up their own opinion on a thing, which completely undoes their claim that they "know better than to trust what critics say". Not only do they take what critics say seriously, they do so far TOO much.

Metric review sites are by far the single worst thing to happen to the entertainment industry in the last twenty years. Seconded closely by every single movie fan becoming obsessed with the financials of every single movie that comes out as if they work for Forbes or something.

Anyways, I doubt they did all this work unless the idea of a sequel was a strong part of the future plans. But we'll never know how the movie would've done if not for the one-two punch of the scamdemic plus agenda-driven reviewers telling people not to see it (while claiming that Chickbusters was good... ugh). So we'll see what happens.

I do suspect that a lot of the "I'm only taking a risk going to the theater for ONE movie this year" type of people are saving that "one risk" for Spider-Man. Even though there's no real risk in going to the movies, but whatever, we've established over the past two years that most people are very stupid and afraid. But anyways, that's undoubtedly a factor as well.

This movie deserved a "real" release without all this nonsense going on. Shame. It probably would've done really well otherwise.

[IMJ]

I still haven't gotten around to seeing it and I really wanted to give it a ticket-buy. I don't know if I will now though with Spidey here and then the Matrix...

[Wildcat]

I honestly had second thoughts about going but I decided it would probably be ok because I never go opening week and the last few times there was not many people when things were normal.

Only 2 other people that wore a mask and were quiet. For comparison there was 1 person when we saw GB’16 and maybe about 8 with Sonic. There’s been a few times we had the theater to ourselves.

Waiting a week or more really does make a difference if you want to avoid crowds or noise. Here anyway. I’ve mentioned I live in a small town. We have 2 theaters. Neither is a huge cineplex. They have 5 screens.

I’m sure studios take the virus into consideration when looking at numbers but it does bother me that a flop is based on how much money is made past a budget and not an actual scale of some kind.

There’s no logic to it. 2 movies can make the same amount but the more expensive one is somehow a failure and “proves” not enough interest? Well no, they had the same amount of interest.

Very happy that Sonic was successful but if it’s budget was much higher it magically becomes a flop?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by IMJ

I still haven't gotten around to seeing it and I really wanted to give it a ticket-buy.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I honestly had second thoughts about going but I decided it would probably be ok because I never go opening week and the last few times there was not many people when things were normal.

Only 2 other people that wore a mask and were quiet. For comparison there was 1 person when we saw GB’16 and maybe about 8 with Sonic. There’s been a few times we had the theater to ourselves.

Waiting a week or more really does make a difference if you want to avoid crowds or noise. Here anyway. I’ve mentioned I live in a small town. We have 2 theaters. Neither is a huge cineplex. They have 5 screens.

I’m sure studios take the virus into consideration when looking at numbers but it does bother me that a flop is based on how much money is made past a budget and not an actual scale of some kind.

There’s no logic to it. 2 movies can make the same amount but the more expensive one is somehow a failure and “proves” not enough interest? Well no, they had the same amount of interest.

Very happy that Sonic was successful but if it’s budget was much higher it magically becomes a flop?

Well, yes, because that's how basic math and finance works. "Interest" is not the name of the game. Nobody is trying to "generate interest", they're trying to generate PROFIT. Interest is only the means to the end, which is profit. And if you spend more on the product, then there needs to be a much, MUCH higher level of "interest" in order to simply break even, let alone turn profit.

Let's use "Zack Snyder's Justice League" as an example. Apparently, it's been the most-Tweeted about movie of 2021 as of a few days ago (I think Spider-Man will bump it, if it hasn't over the last few days), so for better or worse it had a ton of "interest". Does this mean WB is going to do more Zack Snyder DC movies? No, they 10000% aren't ever going to, not this year, next year, next millennium, or ever. "But there's INTEREST!" Well... kind of. For one thing, while most of the people who saw the movie ended up liking it, most of the pre-release "buzz" was just people snarking about how bad they were sure it would be (the fact that many of those same people ended up eating crow and admitting they liked the movie once they saw it doesn't change the fact that most of those Tweets were originally negative comments). Along with that, while the streaming numbers on HBO Max were "okay", and the Blu-ray release had very strong numbers as well, there's the unavoidable fact that MOST of the people who watched ZSJL did not pay to do so, they watched it illegally. Therefore, even though a lot of people watched it, WB made not a lot of money on it. So even if the company had any interest in doing more, the fact that they spent almost $100 million restoring the movie and releasing it to streaming, and did not get an overwhelming return on it, would by itself ensure that no future projects in that vein would be made. Because they spent A Lot and only made A Little. "Interest", and even "engagement", don't ultimately matter if people aren't putting coin on the table for the product.

Just for fun, let's do another one of my wrestling analogies. Two companies each run a show on the same day, each of them in a venue that can plausibly fit 500 people. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there's 30 guys on each show and they each make the same flat rate except for any "TV Star" guys (this never happens, as what you get paid in wrestling is never set and boils down to "Whatever the guy feels like handing you and be grateful you even got that much, asshole", but again, I'm just trying to keep the numbers simple). Let's round it up and say each "not famous" wrestler gets paid $50 (again, in Real Life most guys will get way less but I'm trying to make a point). Let's also stretch reality a bit further and pretend each venue has exactly the same rental and insurance fees, so Company A and Company B are starting the night out on a completely level field. Let's further pretend that they each spent the exact same money on marketing, fliers, paid Facebook ads, etc. Again, just to keep it simple.

So everything pre-show is squared away, and each company is going to spend $1500 paying their respective wrestlers no matter how many fans show up. So again, level ground.

Let's get REALLY heavy into make-believe and pretend BOTH shows draw exactly 100 fans to their respective 500-seat buildings (in Real Life, one show would get like 80-100 and the other one would get like 20 because everyone is at the other show, but again, this is all in service of a broader point). Company A is all "local talent", meaning guys you never heard of, and most of the paying customers are going to be friends and family members of the guys who are on the show. Company B, however, has ONE "big name former WWE TV star" on the show to try and draw more fans (read: "interest") to their show, so their audience is going to be a mixture of the aforementioned friends and family members, and a few who just want to get their picture taken for ten bucks with someone who "used to be famous".

Let's pretend that both shows have tickets set at exactly $20, and in turn, both shows draw exactly 100 fans. So what we see here is that "interest" in both shows is about even, Big Name Guy or NO Big Name Guy. Okay then. Either way, both shows made exactly $2000 at the front door. So far so good, right?

Not at all, actually, at least not for company B.

See, both shows would definitely have preferred a lot more people come out, but they didn't. Company A "only" comes out $500 in the black, at most, but at least they aren't losing money. Having almost all of your entire gate money go back into paying the talent definitely stings, but at least you keep $500 out of the two grand in ticket money. Which is... eh. Something.

But what you may not realize off the top of your head is, Company B is paying the Big Name TV Guy a flat rate of at least $1000 just to walk in the door, even if zero paying customers show up. So after paying ALL the talent, including TV Star Guy, Company B brought in $2000 in tickets but spent $2500 on overhead, so they lost money, even though they "looked better" by having a "big name" on their show. They tried to "generate interest", but in doing so they overspent and cut their own throat.

SO. Company A and Company B drew exactly the same number of paying customers, the same "interest". BUT, Company B spent more than they earned, so Company A gets to run another show in January but Company B doesn't ever run again. So what we take away from this is that having the same amount of "interest" or Audience Engagement means F*cking ZERO if it doesn't mean you take back more than you spent. That's just basic math.

The economics of the entertainment industry are pretty ludicrous, but whether it's movie theaters or 500-seat "arenas" or 100,000-seat stadiums, if you don't earn more than you spend then it doesn't matter how much "interest" there is. Things cost money to produce, and a movie that costs $200 million to make obviously has to earn more to be successful than a movie that earned the same but only cost $70 million to make. Again, this is just basic math.

So no, it doesn't matter even a little bit if exactly the same number of people go to see "Winnie the Pooh F*cks A Unicorn" as the number who go see "MCU Movie #853". One movie cost ten bucks to make and the other cost half a billion. OBVIOUSLY the latter needs to have way, WAY more people paying to see it before it can be called "a success".

I'm not even quite sure how that can be fuzzy. In any case, I hope whatever wasn't clear before is now more clear. If not, I have many, many more belabored analogies I can try and apply.

[Shark_Blade]

I enjoy the movie mostly but I’m not sure what the future holds for the new leads.

The only one I really like is Phoebe as she has the intellect, and probably Podcast (he doesn’t have the scientific knowledge but his communication wiz could prove useful for the team).

Trevor? Aside from fixing the car and being a horny teenager with a raging boner what else he’s gonna contribute? As for the girl he got a crush on, Lucky, why the **** did she strip her clothes off when wearing the uniform? Everyone else just wore it over normally but not her. Ooh let us all see how Trevor is drooling over her naked skin lol awkward. Makes her look like a desperate slut but whatever. They could’ve just cut that crap out. I don’t know what she’s gonna contribute despite wearing the uniform.

If there is a sequel, each individual is gonna need to contribute significantly to make this ghosbusting business work tbh. If not we’re gonna have to wait more years until they mature I guess for the sequel.

[Wildcat]

Leo656, It’s a good analogy. I understand why more expensive movies need a bigger profit. My point is it’s not a proper gauge. It’s like moving-the-goal-post because it’s based on your specific cost not an actual standard of some kind.

Again I understand bigger names, effects, sets, etc...take more money so the studio takes the risk but that should not be held against the movie itself if it does not generate the profit you particularly needed.

I’m just saying it’s an unfair way to judge interest, popularity and performance. Although numbers are not always the final word and movies/sequels still get made anyway even if there’s a hiatus. So that’s nice.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

https://c.tenor.com/3KowX450CJEAAAAC...ory-booker.gif

Maybe I'll do a big "theater week" or something in January and just go and see everything. If it's still in theaters....