Or at least, a plan was laid out to move away from it forever. There's a very slim chance it could survive... Sony would need to back off on greenlighting Paul Feig's planned reboot script once written, and then move into torch-passing territory again. Nothing is impossible, remember that time the Ninja Turtles were supposed to be aliens but fan backlash altered the story? Not that it saved the movie or anything...
Still, with the bold display of support from the studio today, it is hard to imagine things going back.
This blog began in 2007 when the development of the Ghostbusters Video Game sparked fresh rumors of a new film. 319 blog entries are a lot of entries to write about a sequel and 7 years are a long time to keep tabs on rumors.
Today we're closing up shop until we hear otherwise on a sequel continuing the story started by the original Ghostbusters. We don't expect to.
In Feig's latest interview with Entertainment Weekly, he states that coming "back into a world that’s had these ghosts and all this" "just felt too difficult," so he gave up on trying to expand the existing tale and scrapped it for a fresh start. "It’s always hard if the world has gone through this big ghost attack," said Feig, "How do you do it again? I wanted to come into our world where there’s talk of ghosts but they’re not really credible, and so what would happen in our world if this happened today?"
So yeah. Comedies have been rebooted, but they generally have the same characters. Horror films have been rebooted with the same world-rules in place but different characters. Feig's plans for Ghostbusters is a new thing, the horror-comedy reboot with the same rules but new characters. But is it for this blog to cover? No casting news will mean that roles will be reprised. No set peeks will give a clue to a story we last heard from in 1989. No art tease will hint at new developments in a rich lore. The new project will be extremely dissatisfying to follow, though we do hope it is funny and gets a great cast!
Hey. It was a great run. We got hundreds of stories out of the original team of four, be they cartoons, audio tapes, books or films. Now the video game and IDW comics series remain the best point-of-continuation with the original movies. Our suggestion, play and read. Watching is off the table. Unless... original 1984 canon television show starring Aykroyd!? Hey, a blog can dream...
We'll keep crossing our fingers. Don't cross the streams.
Sorry to hear that
ReplyDeleteSalute
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the information over the years
ReplyDeleteI was excited for the team of women Ghostbusters until I found out it wouldn't be connected to the original series. If it was another team of all guys they would be unfairly compared to the originals and it would hurt the films chances for success. Being all women means they'll be fresh characters are won't retread the same ground already seen before. But I disagree with Paul Feig - It's not hard at all to pick up a story in a world where ghosts are known to exist. Just rip off Extreme Ghostbusters - set it 26 years after GBII, have Ray Stantz teaching a class on the paranormal at Columbia Univeristy. No reported ghost activity in 20-something years, so the original team retired and became folk heroes over the following decades. Ray's class only has 3 or 4 students - all happen to be women. Then ghosts reappear and the class becomes the new GBs. Winston and Ray train them to use the equipment. Not hard at all to come up with that story.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the years covering GBIII news - I hope you end up changing your mind and return to cover new developments in the coming months. Whatever you end up doing - Best Wishes!
A real pity. I have always liked visiting this site, if only for the reassurng feeling that I am not the only one to enjoy a fair share of nostalgia. But let's face it: Gotham City has turned into Dunham City, and whatever the new franchise will look like, I am no longer part of its target group – for the better and the worse. All the best to you!
ReplyDeleteGod bless you in your future efforts, sir. You will be missed.
ReplyDeleteI think this will probably be the end of the line for me. I didn't wait 25 years for another story only to have it be a reboot at the eleventh hour, so I'm gutted by this turn. Fieg's comments about why he's ditching the continuity strikes me as very contrived. With his logic surrounding "the big ghost attack", there couldn't be a sequel to his own movie, and we know that won't be the case. If he doesn't know how to do a GB3, then keep looking for someone else who does. You never know, maybe the next person they asked might have said YES.
ReplyDeleteI completely understand your decision and applaud you for all the updates. This blog helped keep my enthusiasm up over the years.
+1 You make a great point about the big ghost attack.
DeleteHey,
ReplyDeleteI’m sure you wouldn’t remember this, but I wrote a comment on your post for Feb. 28th, 2012 (still my only comment on a blog post, up until today), when you first thought you were retiring. I mentioned that I had been following the blog for a few years, and had just moved to Scotland when I started reading, and that it had come to represent a part of my new life there.
Anyways, it’s two-and-a-half years later, I’ve moved back to Canada, and I’m still reading. I’m once again sad to hear that this will be the end of the line for you, but once again want to thank you for all the posts over the years. It’s been fantastic following the blog since 2009, and now – 5 Years Later – I want to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed it. There were ups and downs in news over the years, but every time there was some sort of activity going on with this stuff, I would look here to get the real news.
As for the Paul Feig movie, I’m holding out hope for some connection to the old movies. I just can't believe things have gotten so bad in this development that there’s no way back. I have to imagine all the Ghostbusters fans out there (and there are a lot of us) will force Feig to change his mind about the reboot and make some connection to the old movies. I especially don’t believe Aykroyd will leave it alone. And who knows, maybe with a “hip” new cast and crew involved, Murray will finally consent to being in it. Hopefully Ernie, too. Hope they can make something decent, something pure, something good.
Anyways, I should wrap this up. Incidentally, Ghostbusters 2 is on TV (on AMC) behind me, the Statue of Liberty is really getting the city's positive energy flowing. As I said last time, I’ll continue to keep this blog in the favourites, and will keep an eye out for the return of the Destructor. If that day never comes, than thanks so much for all the effort you have put into this blog, it has been really great, and I think I’m not alone in letting you know that it has been so appreciated. But I hope to see this post up and running again. Who knows, maybe we can get the voices of the people outside to make this slime positively charged. It’s a radical idea, but the door swings both ways. I would be excited to be a part of it.
Thanks for everything,
Dan
Thanks man.
DeleteFrom February until July of 2012, the project was definitely at a lull. That was the time that the studio was forced to give up on a Murray-centric script from The Office writers. Real news was at a stand-still until MIB 3's writer was officially hired to craft something more focused on the new generation (with a small hole for Murray). I was certainly premature in my quitting! ^_^
There are a number of scenarios that would entail this blog's continuation...
1) Feig changes direction, says he's listening to the fans and attempts a Michael-Bay-Ninja-Turtles-Are-Aliens reversal, then decides to cast ladies in a torch-passing sequel instead of a total containment unit reset reboot.
2) The studio hates Feig's final script and goes in another direction entirely, bringing back original characters. It would be a very public step backwards (they put more publicity into Feig's involvement than Cohen's) but anything can happen.
3) A special project that serves as a continuation of the original Ghostbusters universe pops up. Should feature original stars, otherwise the comics would count. A sequel to the video game. An Aykroyd-lead TV show. A CGI sequel. A series of "where are they now" web shorts.
4) Any of the last three scripts leak onto the Internet. Those pages would be fascinating to review.
5) New Ghostbusters gets made but bombs big time. It is seen as another Dumb and Dumberer. Just like Dumb and Dumber To, the (EXTREME-LY ELDERLY) original cast reunites to set things right and give the fans what they wanted all along.
Realistically, don't expect any of this to happen.
I'm seriously contemplating writing a book that chronicles the entire beginning-to-end history of Ghostbusters 3. I've seen things, talked to Aykroyd, hung with producers and heard tales first hand that I couldn't reveal during development. If a continuity film is out the window, all of that can finally be revealed. It's just hard speaking with any authority about a project I was not first-hand involved with... yet... aren't all historians faced with that challenge?
And hey, Feig... the guy behind Freaks and Geeks as well as Bridesmaids... excited for anything he does. I would just be ecstatic to see Ghostbusters lore grow rather than shrink. Think about all of the love that Jurassic World is getting right now. Maybe that world has seen a big dinosaur attack, but seeing the park's franchise expand is interesting in its own way. How about the upcoming Star Wars films, which have a larger time gap for their returning characters? All items I'd love some enterprising journalist or fan to grill Feig over. >:)~
We should fight against this decision of a reboot. We are those people who will pay for the movie. We are the ones who want to see the old cast, we are the one who want the same location, the same mood of the old movies... so we should have the force to stop "Feig" doing this reboot. I don´t want to see female ghostbusters nowdays with a whole new environment and so on. It is just annoying. So why is there no petition or so?
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ReplyDeleteHere are some great gift ideas for ghostbusters fans: http://giftsforgamersandgeeks.com/gift-ideas-ghostbusters-fans/
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