New York, NY (Top40 Charts) It has been 32 years since an original Ghostbuster graced our screens in 1989's Ghostbusters II. However, after numerous delays, the brand new Ghostbusters: Afterlife will find its way into cinemas in November of 2021, directed and co-written by Jason Reitman and promising to be the Ghostbusters sequel we've all been waiting for. A third Ghostbusters film had been in various stages of development ever since Ghostbusters II aired, experiencing recurring complications due to Bill Murray's refusal to commit to any project attempting to reunite the original cast. Then in 2014 actor and writer Harold Ramis passed away, potentially ruling out any chance of a new Ghostbusters film seeing the light of day. Following Ramis' death, Sony Pictures made the contentious decision to produce a series reboot in 2016.
Ghostbusters (2016) was directed by Paul Feig and starred Melissa McCarthy, Kirsten Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones in an all-female refresh of the franchise. Unfortunately the film tanked, with losses of $70 million having to be absorbed by the studio. Fans were critical of the poorly realized storyline, and of the fact that many of the original cast made cameo appearances in the film as new characters. Following the failure of the reboot, Sony tasked Reitman with developing a direct sequel to the original series. Ghostbusters: Afterlife will star Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard and McKenna Grace as well as marking the return of the original surviving cast in Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Sigourney Weaver.
The original Ghostbusters was an all-star performance by some of the greatest comedic talent working in Hollywood at the time. Bill Murray had already been making waves in the industry due to a string of critically and commercially successful films. In fact, the early Bill Murray comedy Stripes was co-written by fellow Ghostbuster Harold Ramis. It was part of a series of films that saw the two comedians working closely together. Ramis directed 1980's Caddyshack and was also part of the writing team for 1982's Tootsie, both of which featured Murray in supporting roles.
Dan Akyroyd had his start on Saturday Night Live in the second half of the 1970s, where he worked alongside his comedic partner John Belushi. It was on SNL that they first performed as The Blues Brothers, before going on to produce and star in the movie of the same name in 1980, directed by John Landis. It was a huge success and cemented their reputation as some of the brightest stars in Hollywood. It was Akyroyd who initially came up with the idea of Ghostbusters, which he conceived as a project for himself and Belushi. Sadly in 1982 Belushi died, so Aykroyd paired up with Harold Ramis to re-write the script into the one we see in the feature film. Ghostbusters would also serve as Ernie Hudson's first major role after having worked for several years as a television actor on The A Team, Fantasy Island and The Dukes of Hazzard.
When the film was released on June 8th, 1984, it quickly became the highest grossing comedy film of all time. It went on to stay at number one in the box office for the next 7 weeks in the United States. Its theme song, written and performed by Ray Parker Jr., features the famous call-and-response catchphrase "Who you gonna call? Ghost Busters!" and it went straight to number one. The total media franchise, which includes Ghostbusters 2 as well as an animated television series and numerous video games and toys, totals over $2 billion dollars globally.
Reitman's project understandably has big shoes to fill, and his Ghostbusters film will have to fight the uphill battle of rehabilitating the franchise in the minds of a new generation of moviegoers who have the 2016 flop still fresh in their minds. Though with the original stars returning after an absence of three decades to join some of the biggest stars working in Hollywood today, Afterlife looks set to be the true spiritual successor that the franchise has long deserved.
