Yeah. Just because the vast, vast, vast majority of the movie going public thought this movie was terrible, doesn't mean it actually was. Just that a lot of people hate women. Where are all the "new" Ghostbusters defenders, anyway? The ones that would have their heads explode if anyone said one negative thing about the film.

I was just busting balls... the movie was awful and I went into it hoping for the best. It's been running non stop on Starz, I think, and I can't even bear to have it on in the background.

Sony now has to take a $1 billion dollar write off due to Ghostbusters bombing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/sonys...on-loss-2017-1

But it's certified fresh by Rotten Tomatoes, it even says so right on the box art!

It wasn't great, but I didn't hate the movie by any stretch.

I watched it again semi-recently to test out the 3D on PSVR and yeah. Pretty much this. It's still okay. Some jokes hold up; others don't. I'd still call it entertaining.

Interesting recollection, to say the least.

Just watched it again the other day and enjoyed it thoroughly

To be fair, it wasn't just Ghostbusters, others movies as well (including Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk).


Oh, and one viewing was enough for me even if I didn't think it was one of the worst movies of 2016.

I will say it's funny that after all the hype and the arguments from feminists about how evil men are if they didn't want to see this, about how if you don't see this movie you aren't supporting women, about how hilarious it's going to be and about what an impact it's going to have. Here are the results 7 months later:

-It proved that yes, women too can star in crappy forgettable summer blockbusters that bomb just as well as men.

-It showed that Paul Feig seems to come across as a bigger and bigger douche when people talk about it.

-It proved that Sony was insane for letting Amy Pascal ever be in charge of a studio.

-It proved that it wasn't worth all the hype and seven months later no one gives a shit about it and it's just another in a long line of forgotten remakes.

I'd be curious to know what factors played into the film not doing well. Did it just come out at a bad time when MRAs were very vocal due to social media? Was it not keeping it in the same universe as the original Ghostbusters? Lack of a having a mixed-gender team? Was it bad PR? Were original GB fans opinions enough to sway things? Was it the from the trailer portraying Patty as a stereotype? The special effects?

Because it seems to have a decent rating on RottenTomatoes, and it seems like more DVDtalkers like it than those that didn't.

I think there just wasn't much of a demand for a new Ghostbusters that didn't star the original crew. The trailers weren't great, and the negative press around it probably didn't help.

It's also harder to draw audiences in these days, it seems.

X-men: Apocalypse and Star Trek Beyond were only able to muster up about $155m a piece domestically
Ghostbusters wrangled up $128.4m domestic
Independence Day: Resurgence managed a poor $103m domestically
Passengers got hamstrung at $98m
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: out of the Shadows stalled at $82m
Alice Through the Looking Glass only pulled in $77m on its $170m budget

...and yet Suicide Squad and BvS still made it to roughly $330m.

Possibly. I definitely didn't want to see an aged Murray and company in another GB sequel. But Bill Murray and the rest made Ghostbusters. Although the concept is great, it was the chemistry and humor of the main cast that pushed that film to classic status.

I might rent it just to see.

This shit is funny.

The company described the write-down as a “non-cash loss.” It said the loss was due to a number of factors past and present, including the purchase of the studio almost 30 years ago and the “dramatic shifts in the home entertainment space.”

What now? Who said "men are evil if they don't want to see it!" ?
Eh? Who said "you aren't supporting women if you don't see this movie!" ?
Subjective, but I'll take it. We all have unique funny bones!
Not sure what you mean by "impact" but... the only impact was that billion dollar loss, right! Ha!

Very objective proven factual facts, sir.

edit: Is Paul Feig Guru Askew still suspended?? Admins should probably let him come back by now. I mean, I know he tried to destroy men, one man at a time, but a 7-month suspension is a bit harsh.

I think there were a lot of reasons this movie underperformed and you can't pick just one reason, but the top ones would be:

1.The feminists and MRA: These groups seemed to be the loudest groups bickering back and forth and the people in the middle thought both groups were stupid. It didn't cause a greater desire to see the movie and instead turned the middle groups off.

2. The cast: The cast just wasn't that interesting. No one knew McKinnon or Jones outside of SNL which I hear a lot of people say hasn't been funny in years and they haven't watched it in years. Wiig has never headlined her own movie and McCarthy was the only box office draw. Plus casting McCarthy turned off people who don't like her movies and thought this would be another typical McCarthy movie with the Ghostbusters brand.

3.Paul Feig: He was the wrong choice for this movie. Reading interviews with him you can tell that he had no idea what made the original work and his humor didn't work for it. I mean come on, he makes three soup jokes.

4.Men and women didn't want to see it: There was a bunch of articles about how Sony was basically going "Oh shit!" when it comes to this movie because it wasn't appealing to men. By the same token females didn't care because it's not the type of movie that women flock in droves too. Look at the highest grossing female driven movies. How many are $130 million special effects blockbusters?

5. Marketing: The marketing for this was awful. The first trailer was terrible and people seemed confused if it was a sequel, remake or reboot.

6. Amy Pascall: She just wanted to do a huge budget female led movie because that's what she wanted to see. If it wasn't Ghostbusters it was set to be a Spider-Man spin off. That caused them to go the route of all females when a mixed cast would have been more progressive and more unique.

7. Lack of interest in the brand in the public eye: The last movie was thirty years ago. The hey days of Ghostbusters as a franchise was long gone and while GB as a brand still has staying power it wasn't on the same level as something like Star Wars. Plus it just didn't look good.

8. Lack of interest from fans: Sony was trying to feed fans Spam when they wanted steak. They had been waiting for a new GB for thirty years and never got one. Now the entire cast comes back(minus Harold Ramis) and instead of taking advantage of it, they piss off the fans by making them different characters almost rubbing salt in the wound.

9. It just wasn't good: At the end of the day if it was funny, entertaining and a great experience people would have flocked to it. Most people who saw it had the attitude of "Meh" towards it.

I thought I posted a little while back but I don't see my comment. We finally watched this several weeks back and it wasn't terrible at all. We laughed at a lot of parts and the characters had some interesting aspects to them.


I wish it had been set in the same universe as the first two movies, it just makes so much more sense that they would have franchises in different cities. It would have made it easier for some of the more virulent haters to accept the changes in gender and equipment.




1. Yeah, that's pretty spot on.

2. Again, yes. The original cast was amazing.

3. Not sure about Feig so I'll pass

4. I think there's more female geek fans than people let on - I know a lot of our friends had daughters that were excited to see female Ghostbusters in action.

5. Yep.

6. I somewhat disagree here - if you don't get women or persons of color in positions where they can push projects that are more inclusive, you'll likely never see them. But I agree a better approach could have been done.

7. The movies and cartoon series continue to sell on DVD/Blu and people cosplay it all the time. There was brand awareness, but this particular project wasn't sold well.

8. Same point as # 2

9. Somewhat subjective - there were people that enjoyed it. But you're right that it didn't create a good buzz to make others want to see it too.



This really is the best summation. The original cast was a big part of why the first movie is such a favorite. If they had at least tried to make it a "passing of the torch" story, that might have made it go down easier.

People here were dismissing the disproportionate amount of hate this movie was getting as having anything to do with the female cast.

People here said that they wouldn't be able to carry that equipment.

People here said they weren't attractive enough - the dream cast was always four bombshells. Which is doubly ridiculous looking at the cast of the original.

I said many times along the way that the movie might not be good. But the pre-release bitching was OFF THE CHARTS and anyone who suggested that the casting of four women who weren't smoking-hot size twos had anything to do with it got shouted down as SJWs.

The trailer set a record for "dislike" on YouTube. That led to arguments about how it must have been rigged. Rigged or not there was just a lot of bad vibes around the film from that moment forward. Then Fieg went off the rails posing for publicity shots with the female cast kicking him in the balls and stuff. The whole thing was a huge turn off.

Like many of the recent posters to this thread I watched in on Starz a week or two ago. I thought it was mildly humorous if forgettable. At the end of the day the hype/publicity/etc. this movie got upon initial release was WAY overblown.

I found it strange, and a nice surprise, that I never once though about "girl power" or feminism or anything like that when I watched it. As gimmicky as it may have been I never really felt like it was while watching.

Anyone who claimed that this movie was some sort of assault on men needs to choose their battles better. There's a lot of gender inequality in the world. Ghostbusters (2016) is not one of them.

I too caught this on Starz recently. I went in with the lowest of low expectations, so it did manage to exceed them, but just barely.

It was exactly what I thought it would be. It was a movie that nobody asked for, and if the originals had never existed it may have been received better. As it is, it pales in comparison and is crushed beneath the weight of the original's shadow.

The main villain was trash btw. Whoever came up with that idea should not be allowed to write another script ever. It would have been better if he was more of an Ivo Shandor type than just some weird loner.

I saw it on cable on a free preview of a pay channel package. Starz or Cinemax, don't know which.

It was, like most prefab blockbusters, thoroughly mediocre. It was competantly made, but never satisfied or disappointed. A completely lifeless affair that I neither loved nor hated, liked nor disliked.

What's weird is that I really disliked the Hobbit movies, more than the new GB, but I'd rather watch the Hobbit movies. I've even bought them on blu-ray. And despite being more disappointed by them than GB, they're still more interesting in their failures than GB is in its mediocrity.

Yeah, the outrage over this was and is ridiculous. It's just another middling Hollywood movie.

The outrage was on both sides.

I watched this on a flight from Dubai. I think it started off stronger than I expected but by the 20 minute mark, I was bored. I fell asleep. When I woke up, I started it again and watched it from the beginning. A couple of laughs here and there. The biggest laugh for me was Andy Garcia's "Never compare me to the Jaws mayor. Never!"

Overall, it was tough to get through. The editing was atrocious. Some scenes totally look like they were shot at different times. I thought Kate McKinnon was completely underused with most of her bits coming off as "Now say something funny to end the scene."

Yes. Facts are indeed interesting.

Must have avoided websites like Jezebel and The Mary Sue. They constantly had articles bashing what they called the "baby men" who didn't seem for this remake. James Rolfe said he didn't want to see it and he was torn to shreds and was made the focal point. Four months later he was in Oregon for a gaming convention and a newspaper writer covering it said to go to the con but don't bother going to see him because he didn't support the Ghostbusters remake and was a terrible person for that reason. Even Comicbookgirl19 said the only reason she wasn't attacked for saying the same things was because she was a woman.

See above websites. Oh and Dan Aykroyd saying that the people who complained and were messing with Leslie Jones(which I don't condone) were men who were going to be voting for Donald Trump. Genius thinking Dan by turning off conservatives as if having the movies official Twitter endorse Hillary Clinton wasn't stupid enough.

Pretty much. Richard Roeper shouldn't have been getting death threats for not liking this movie(and he did).

That played a part in it yes but it wasn't the main part. A lot people wanted a mixed cast, a lot of people saw it as a gimmick and a lot of it had to do with the actors they cast causing people to think it was going to suck right away as they weren't known for quality work and their pedigree wasn't as high as Reitman, Murray, Ramis and Aykroyd's was.

I don't think anyone ever tried defending that and most thought it was stupid.

[QUOTEPeople here said they weren't attractive enough - the dream cast was always four bombshells. Which is doubly ridiculous looking at the cast of the original.[/QUOTE]

Nobody was saying that the cast should be four Victoria's Secrets models. I remember names like Emma Stone, Anne Hathaway and Aisha Tyler being thrown around as replacements and people saying that they were only mentioned because they were attractive. You realize how hypocritical that sounds to say that people don't like this cast for not being attractive while saying that the only reason those others were mentioned was because they are attractive right?

Here's the thing. Say this cast was switched with the cast of Bad Mom's. Would there have still been complaints? Most likely because no one wanted an all female cast, and no one wanted this movie to be made. So they had a big challenge ahead of them before the first trailer and they shit the bed. Bad. It got even more ridiculous when people were saying stuff like" You should go see it even if you think the trailer is shit and at least give it a chance and form your own opinion" ignoring the fact that the entire point of a trailer is to sell the movie as something you want to see. How many people were saying that about Pixels the summer before?

Plus because of the female cast it got to the point that people were making this movie out to be beyond criticisms. Remake the Karate Kid, Halloween, Robocop and bitch to your hearts content. But complain about this movie and the narrative became that you only complained about it because it has women and you must hate women.