majorjoe23

This looks stupid. Women can't fill the shoes of Larry Storch and a monkey.

pinata242

Maybe they should just call it Ghostbustresses to shut down the misogyny by throwing it right in the title.

Sean O'Hara

Until somebody actually answers the question.

Who said it isn't? The issue is the double standard here -- if having a unisex team is a gimmick, then the original was just as gimmicky, but nobody rants about how awful it was that only the guys got to use proton packs while the girls were left to answer phones and get molested by dogs.

fumanstan

So by casting an all female group this time around, do you think that it was done coincidentally where it just happened women were the best fit for the roles being written?

Solid Snake

You should probably phrase that differently. If it was being written... then yes... they were written for women. Unless they really had blank states in gender for the the script.

robin2099

But the concept was organically created as three male buddies/ co-workers getting fired and they form their own business catching ghosts. That was how it was originally envisioned and created. So yes the fact that it was three men was important because of how the roles were written.

A gimmick is when something is done to either shake up an idea to sell something, or giving up and trying something different in order to get notice. Ghostbusters as a concept was created in the 80's so saying that it was a gimmick doesn't make any sense.

And if someone did the same thing with an all male cast and called it Sex and the City, then that would be a gimmick. Just like if someone said "Hey! Let's remake the Blues Brothers but with women! We can call it The Blues Sisters!" That would be a gimmick.

fumanstan

No, I phrased that the way I intended. If gender has little to do with it, then the movie would be written with gender neutral roles and these 4 women happened to be the best fit. I don't think that was the case at all; if the writer/director/studio are the ones taking gender in to consideration, makes sense that there's a subsequent reaction to it.

I still don't get the issue, other then a few folks trying to act socially superior or something. Taking an existing concept and switching an aspect of it around deliberately to attract attention is a gimmick as I mentioned before; it's not necessarily a bad label, it often works, and it's not isolated to gender.

Draven

To me, casting a group of women is the same as casting people who were taller or shorter than the original cast. The fact that they are women has no bearing on the concept of who Ghostbusters are as characters.

But if it was the aforementioned Sister Act or Bridesmaids, those are distinctly female-focused films because nuns and bridesmaids are female characters.

Are Ghostbusters inherently male? And if they aren't, than what's the gimmick? What are they changing about the Ghostbusters? There is nothing distinctly male about them, is there?

I'm genuinely trying to wrap my head around it. When this was all announced, I was like "cool, I like some of the things these people have done" as opposed to OH MY GOD THEY DON'T HAVE DICKS THIS MOVIE IS GOING TO BLOOOOOOOW.

PhantomStranger

The studios are always looking for gimmicky concepts to wedge female comedies in, this just happened to be one of the most popular comedies of all time they could use as a selling point. No one would even know this movie is getting made if they hadn't called it Ghostbusters.

Most Ghostbusters' fans were hoping a sequel with the original cast was made in some form, even if it introduced a new generation of Ghostbusters.

Supermallet

Women can't be buddies or co-workers? They can't get fired and form their own businesses?

PatD

I think it's going to suck that it's going to be made in the same pattern as every dumbed-down multiplex-friendly "comedy" that's been put out for over the last decade or so. They couldn't put out the ORIGINAL Ghostbusters in today's studio system without putting in a bunch of poop and fart jokes to entertain the yahoos that they're trying to appeal to.

Draven

You're right - things used to be so much more high-brow:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VPIP9KXdmO0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Solid Snake

Genius writing!

PatD

As Bill Maher had put it a few weeks ago on Real Time, back then, it was a shocking thing as a gag for the 70s. It was groundbreaking affront to American Puritanism. Now, it's the laziest par for the course.

But, they couldn't make Blazing Saddles today either--albeit for different reasons.

fumanstan

Just because there's nothing distinctly male about being a Ghostbuster, which I agree with, is irrelevant. The gimmick is that it's the same thing as the previous movies, only this time with all women. YOU might not feel gender as being an attribute worthy of distinction, but do you feel that writers, studios, and the demographics of the movie going public share that same thought?

Supermallet

I do think that gender is an attribute worthy of distinction, but that doesn't mean that playing with gender is automatically a gimmick.

My Other Self

As the the entire internet is aware, this movie has been in development hell since the mid-90s.

Sony, who has no viable franchises aside from this, knows who and what is "hot" right now in Hollywood. They're ignorant from the leaked e-mails it seems, but not stupid.

This movie is nothing more than a cash grab. Catering to a female demographic by showing a different version of a movie that's already popular with the boys is nothing more than a fucking gimmick. Aside from a few voices here and there, most people are in agreement with that.

Michael Corvin

Yes and no. Gender is irrelevant. The fact they went from an all male team in various forms for the past 30 years to all female is what makes it a gimmick, IMO.

majorjoe23

Kylie Griffin and Janine Melnitz wept!

Draven

They don't have many, but James Bond is doing okay for them.

robin2099

And going back to the Sex and the City example, men can't have sex in New York, be horn dogs, and have relationships? That doesn't change the fact that if HBO rebooted Sex in the City with an all male cast people would be calling it a gimmick and bashing them and calling them sexiest.

Bingo.

James Bond isn't their franchise. The have co distribution rights with MGM and thats it. The only franchises Sony has are MIB, Spiderman(which they had to get Marvel involved because they kept botching it after Raimi left) and Ghostbusters. Maybe Masters of the Universe if they ever start production.

gryffinmaster

Sex and the City thrived because of its gender perspective, though, whereas the Ghostbusters franchise really doesn't care that the core four are men. Personally, I think they should have mixed the reboot up completely. Five, maybe six members of the team, with both women and men.

dsa_shea

Schlongs and the City is not what we need. Nor do we need an all female Ghostbuster reboot/remaster/reinvention.

pinata242

I'm pretty sure that "Schlongs and the City" is exactly what "Looking" is.

windom

Wasn't part of the joke with Ghostbusters that they were a bunch of guys waving around their neutrino wands right out of their crotches and trying not to cross their streams with one another? In other words, it was thinly veiled joke about guys' penises. Are they gonna have the females doing the same thing? I don't see how it can be as funny. Unless they have them throw down a tampon trap that they use to suck up the ghosts.