Hollywood: Ghostbusters Franchise Needs A Complete Reimagining (Or To End For Good)

Conceived by Dan Aykroyd, a lifelong fan of the occult, as a starring vehicle for himself and John Belushi, Ghostbusters was meant to bridge comedy and supernatural elements, while crafting a sprawling time and space traveling franchise for the two comedians. After Belushi died in 1982, Harold Ramis came aboard and they created a more financially sound project that would take place in New York and focus on ghosts being unleashed there, rather than having teams of Ghostbusters scattered all over time and space, all competing against one another. The original concept was far more ambitious than what was eventually filmed, akin more to Men In Black in terms of both story, concept, and VFX. However, the scaled-back approach worked well and Ghostbusters became one of the highest-grossing comedies of all time, spawning a franchise that has covered everything from films, animated series, merchandise, video games, and more.

After Ghostbusters II was released to a mostly lukewarm reception, the franchise stalled for 27 years with multiple stop-and-go announcements along the way for sequels and spinoffs that never came to fruition. In 2016, Paul Feig stunt-casted a reboot of the franchise, which essentially recreated the 1984 original right down to the finale. While entertaining, the film faced harsh criticism and backlash (as well as poor box office) for switching up the cast and repeating the same tired story as the previous films. Likewise, the latest attempt, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, is making the same mistake of leaning too far into nostalgia and mostly recreating the original film, spinning the franchise wheels yet again. Therefore, the only thing that can salvage the series at this point is a complete and total revamp with new characters, technology, threats, setting, tone, etc. that is more akin to Aykroyd's original vision for the Ghostbusters series, instead of the constant retread of the same old song-and-dance every five or more years. If that can't be done, then continuing the franchise is doomed to continue the repetitive cycle of remaking the same movie over and over again.