moviemaker29 wrote: ↑December 4th, 2019, 3:01 pm But I absolutely do think that after the failure of GB16, the studio is banking on the fact that they can save the GB brand by starting with getting the fans behind this film and making a legitimate sequel.
I certainly understand that
Ghostbusters is a valuable property to Sony -- I said almost identical things as you did in this post in the box office thread in this forum to RichardLess.
However, I think you overestimate both 1) how anxious Sony was to jump on this horse so soon after
Ghostbusters (2016) was such a public debacle thanks to the backlash and behind-the-scenes problems. I don't think we'd know what was next yet had Jason not come along, and no guarantee it'd be a true sequel -- left to their own devices, Sony probably would've conceived of something like
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which is barely a sequel -- you see Robin Williams' character's name carved in a fence, and that's the entirety of the connective tissue. Something cast-driven, less expensive, and not as much of a lightning rod. If not that, maybe an attempt to make the animated movie in the
Spider-Verse vein, in terms of targeted demo/visual style/humor (something I still think would rule).
As far as Sony is concerned, I think the sequel thing only comes in on a couple of levels -- the reboot failed financially, so it's just not a sequel to that, and probably to appease Ivan. Ironically, this might have been made at the last moment when Sony would've bitten on it as a sequel, or made anything based on IP in general: the hat trick of
Terminator: Dark Fate,
Doctor Sleep, and Sony's own
Charlie's Angels all failing, combined with residual 2016 wounds, probably has them sweating this trailer launch.
The sequel thing here is almost certainly down to it being the idea Jason provided, Jason being someone who they can assume will get along with Ivan, and someone who therefore has the resources to get the original cast on board. I don't think it's as integral to whatever Sony's plans were for the franchise otherwise. Plus, again, fans are not a monolith. I think Jason's movie sounds great, but I stopped thinking a direct sequel was likely in 1999, stopped really wanting one in 2009, and really thought more
Ghostbusters (which I assumed was going to happen eventually, thanks to Sony) ought to be something else when Harold passed away. And in 2016 I thought that movie was, in principle, the right route to take the series. Whether or not I think any angle is a safe bet now, I would also say that I think 2016 set up a number of dominos that led to this one looking like a smart move at exactly the right time, and I'm not sure what we'd be looking at without it.
RE: Sonic's design -- I would chalk that up less to the fact that the fans were mad and more the reaction to the trailer being
so disastrous it set an expensive movie up for financial failure, so, again, money. I mean, how many die-hard Sonic the Hedgehog
fans are there, and how many are a
shoo-in to go see a movie? Sounds like a pretty small audience! Even now that they've fixed it, I dunno how well I'd guess that movie is going to do.