The last thing that Sony wants with the upcoming “Ghostbusters” sequel, slated for summer 2020, is to repeat what happened with Paul Feig’s doomed 2016 reboot. Not saying anything about the quality of the film, as each film fan is entitled to their own opinion (unjustly biased or not), but Sony’s last attempt to bring the “Ghostbusters” franchise back was met with some serious backlash from a vocal group of fans. And apparently, the studio learned a lesson from that, and has hired the 1984 film’s original director’s son Jason Reitman to bring the franchise back to a place where fans will be happy.
And when you hear Jason Reitman describe the incredibly detailed ways he’s going to bring the franchise back to its roots, it’s clear the new director is catering to those same folks that cried “sacrilege!” when Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Harold Ramis were replaced by *GASP!* four women.
“I’m not making the ‘Juno’ of ‘Ghostbusters’ movies,” said the director, while being interviewed on a recent episode of the Bill Burr Podcast.
From there, Reitman discusses the painstaking lengths he’s willing to go to bring the original look and feel to the new “Ghostbusters” film. Needless to say, hiring the son of the original director means that the studio is getting a very reverential sequel in 2020.
“This is going to be a love letter to ‘Ghostbusters,’ said Reitman. “I love this franchise. I grew up watching it. I consider myself the first ‘Ghostbusters’ fan. I was like seven years old when that movie came out and I love it. I want to make a movie for my fellow ‘Ghostbusters’ fans.”
He continued by discussing the amount of work that went into creating the short teaser that was released earlier this year. He said, “We went back to the work files for the sound of the proton pack. And we went back to the stems of Elmer Berstein’s score. Just for where it says, in the teaser, ‘Sumer 2020,’ we went back and found the original physical vinyl letters they used to create the ‘Ghostbusters’ poster in 1984. Rescanned them and then our titles guys reprinted them. We filmed the titles. Not like in a computer. We shot physical titles with a light and smoke effect because that’s how they would have done it back in the day.”
“We are, in every way, trying to go back to the original technique and hand the movie back to the fans,” the director concluded.
At this point, if Reitman puts the same effort into creating the finished film as he did into the very short teaser, then fans of the original film will be hard-pressed to find anything to complain about. Who are we kidding? It’s 2019 and there’s always something for fans to complain about!