“Ghostbusters” Review Embargo Lifted: “It’s A Bust”

just like every other big/classic franchise from the 80's/90's -- they get remade/rebooted because someone wants a big payday for doing very little original work.

Ghostbusters/Ninja Turtles/Transformers.... as someone who grew up with it all, it's sad they have no problem raping my childhood memories.
 
Guess they will never remake Shazam or Isis. I tried to watch the 6 million dollar man reruns and that was painful. I think some memories are best un re-lived.
 
recent movies have been running a trend of doing poor for critics before their release but the public finds them to be ok. So I am not going to rule out the movie till actual people start to see it
 
I have a moratorium on Melissa McCarthy movies. So no movie for me. I also, can't for the life of me think why they couldn't have made this a proper sequel (Ghostbusters 3) and have the new team take over from the old team. They got Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray to cameo in this. That would have made fans a lot less upset. Maybe even excited.
 
Tiberian said:
I personally don't give a shit that the Ghostbusters themselves are now females, I care that Hollywood just have no creativity anymore and can't come up with anything actually new and original and continues to force-feed the viewing public nothing but rehashed trash which is probably what this reboot/remake/whatever they wish to consider it turns out to be. I got no use for it so it'll never be anything I bother with. I took a chance on the Total Recall reboot a few years back, total failure that was compared to the original, took a chance on the Godzilla reboot (since I grew up watching the original Godzilla movies in the 1970s) and couldn't stand it, and so on and so forth.

This will probably make money, unfortunately, but if I keep repeating why people will end up hating me for it (as if some don't already). :D
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Box office projections for it right now are not great. Around $40m opening weekend domestically. It doesn't look like it's releasing in China (at least that I can tell) so it can't use the second biggest movie market in the world so save it, like Warcraft and ID4 2 did. So Sony will have to hope the rest of the international market loves the movie. That's on a $150m budget + who the hell knows how big of a marketing budget. I wouldn't be surprised if they spent another $100m avertising the thing. There are tons of TV spots and promos all over the place for it. So they're going to have to make a lot of money in order to break even.

For comparison: Secret Life of Pets pulled in 103m this weekend in North America alone and Finding Dory just passed Cap: CW as the highest grossing moving of the year in NA. ID4 2 did around 40m opening weekend domestically but pulled in around 200m worldwide. Ghostbusters needs to magically pull in ID4 numbers worldwide opening weekend to be a success.
 
Megalith said:
The new, female-led Ghostbusters film is getting mixed reviews and currently has a 46% top critics score on RT. Will you still check it out this week?

…although the new Ghostbusters follows the template of the original by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the witless script by Feig and his co-writer on The Heat, Katie Dippold, has no juice. Short on both humor and tension, the spook encounters are rote collisions with vaporous CG specters that escalate into an uninvolving supernatural cataclysm unleashed upon New York's Times Square. It's all busy-ness, noise and chaos, with zero thrills and very little sustainable comic buoyancy.
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I will watch it next week. People hated warcraft and I liked that soo...
 
Megalith said:
The new, female-led Ghostbusters film is getting mixed reviews and currently has a 46% top critics score on RT. Will you still check it out this week?

…although the new Ghostbusters follows the template of the original by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the witless script by Feig and his co-writer on The Heat, Katie Dippold, has no juice. Short on both humor and tension, the spook encounters are rote collisions with vaporous CG specters that escalate into an uninvolving supernatural cataclysm unleashed upon New York's Times Square. It's all busy-ness, noise and chaos, with zero thrills and very little sustainable comic buoyancy.
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Yes, but 74% of reviews are positive and there are only 13 top reviews so far. The trailers were really bad, so I won't be surprised if it's awful, but until I see 30 or 40 top reviewers, it's too soon to say if it's as bad as most of us fear.
 
The trailers were disliked even more than the trailers for a movie about a cell-phone game.

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I was just on rotten tomatoes, and now it's up to 76%. How does a 30 percentage point jump happen in that short amount of time?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I was just on rotten tomatoes, and now it's up to 76%. How does a 30 percentage point jump happen in that short amount of time?
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Critics largely base their reviews on where their income is coming from, the public largely bases it on their friend's Facebook & Twitter posts.
 
I have a feeling after the liberal media turning this into a Trump supporter woman hating slant on why this movie has such horrible hype, that some reviewers are being paid to fluff their views of the flick.
 
I found it funny I saw more commercial sponsorship tie-ins (Progressive Insurance, Papa John's pizza, etc) than I saw trailers for the movie.... oh and all those had male ghostbusters :D
 
4saken said:
I have a feeling after the liberal media turning this into a Trump supporter woman hating slant on why this movie has such horrible hype, that some reviewers are being paid to fluff their views of the flick.
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Oh My
 
To me it sounds like (from some reviews I've seen) a lot of people are liking it simply to annoying the people who don't like it, it's became a kind of rallying cry for feminism and if you don't like it you're a sexist.

Trailer just looked like crap to me, terrible cartoony looking ghosts/cgi with jokes that tried way too hard rather then relying on the wit or subtleness of the actors/actresses portraying it.
 
Probleminfected said:
Rather not ruin good memories of movies I loved when I was a kid.

I'll skip it.
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This is my first thought. I generally don't like remakes(super hero movies seem to be the only ones to pull this off).

MacLeod said:
I'll check it out when it hits Netflix but I ain't paying money to rent it or see it in the theater. Not because it's women, it's because the previews made it look just horrible.
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Quix said:
I have a moratorium on Melissa McCarthy movies. So no movie for me. I also, can't for the life of me think why they couldn't have made this a proper sequel (Ghostbusters 3) and have the new team take over from the old team. They got Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray to cameo in this. That would have made fans a lot less upset. Maybe even excited.
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Paul_Johnson said:
You don't think Sony would manipulate the reviews like they did the trailer comments do you?
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Yea I'm not a fan of McCarthy(think of her as a modern Chris Farley and I'm not into that humor). The thing to me is everything I have seen about this movie is bad. I think the uniforms look bad, the weapons look bad(even compared to the originals which look better), the car doesn't look as cool, etc.

I will say I was worried about the female cast not because they were females, but because I was worried about the reasons they went with females. When I saw it I was worried about it being a man bashing film and from the reviews it seems like it down to the assistant being an idiot and the nut shot at the end. I also questioned the stereotypical loud black woman role.

The preview did it for me though. They made it look like a shitty remake instead of being something that could have been good. Personally I think they should have made it continue the original story. They could have had the original actors passing the torch to the new ones and continued it that way. The preview made it look like a full copy of the original though and it just didn't look good at all. Ghostbusters is an interesting movie that manages to hold up well and overall was done surprisingly well. Everyone knew the chances of a remake holding up wasn't going to be good.

The claims that Sony selectively deleted comments to make the negative reviews all seem sexist bothers me as well. Does anyone have examples of this being done elsewhere? It just seemed to add to the man bashing that the movie looked like it was going to be.
 
Damar said:
This made me laugh pretty good....



New Ghostbusters Franchise Will Be Endless Says Sony
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What, endless like Fast & Furious and Bond films? Not happening. They'll be lucky to get a sequel.

I don't mind McCarthy, but her schtick is getting old. Might not be her fault that she gets typecast, but the crude empowered fat woman routine died about 3 flicks back. She's like a female Chris Farley at this point, loud and obnoxious. Sure, he was funny too, but he played the same character in every movie.

Paul_Johnson said:
You don't think Sony would manipulate the reviews like they did the trailer comments do you?
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As I mentioned before , I've seen that happen on other controversial films (ones where it's rumored to be a flop). I really do think they employ review farms to temporarily skew the ratings before the launch. Once the movie actually opens, the real reviews tend to drive it back to where it should be.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this sitting at a sub 30% RT rating after next weekend.
 
DrLobotomy said:
Guess they will never remake Shazam or Isis. I tried to watch the 6 million dollar man reruns and that was painful. I think some memories are best un re-lived.
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Heh, yeah there's definitely some cheese 80s stuff. Loved as a kid, but I cringed when I tried to rewatch.

Buck Rogers comes to mind. But Erin gray in skin tight spandex, oh my. I was wondering why my 10yrold wee wee got the tingles when I saw her bend over in that spandex outfit:D
 
swatbat said:
This is my first thought. I generally don't like remakes(super hero movies seem to be the only ones to pull this off).







Yea I'm not a fan of McCarthy(think of her as a modern Chris Farley and I'm not into that humor). The thing to me is everything I have seen about this movie is bad. I think the uniforms look bad, the weapons look bad(even compared to the originals which look better), the car doesn't look as cool, etc.

I will say I was worried about the female cast not because they were females, but because I was worried about the reasons they went with females. When I saw it I was worried about it being a man bashing film and from the reviews it seems like it down to the assistant being an idiot and the nut shot at the end. I also questioned the stereotypical loud black woman role.

The preview did it for me though. They made it look like a shitty remake instead of being something that could have been good. Personally I think they should have made it continue the original story. They could have had the original actors passing the torch to the new ones and continued it that way. The preview made it look like a full copy of the original though and it just didn't look good at all. Ghostbusters is an interesting movie that manages to hold up well and overall was done surprisingly well. Everyone knew the chances of a remake holding up wasn't going to be good.

The claims that Sony selectively deleted comments to make the negative reviews all seem sexist bothers me as well. Does anyone have examples of this being done elsewhere? It just seemed to add to the man bashing that the movie looked like it was going to be.
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Passing the torch is what Aykroyd, Reitman, and Ramis wanted to do originally. The plan was to have the movie be Ghostbusters 3, with a new cast. They wanted a cast of both men and women being Ghostbusters and have the original team train them and pass the torch. Another idea was for it to take place in a time with multiple teams of Ghostbusters with the originals still serving as mentor roles but the series following a younger cast. But between Murray being his usual self and Amy Pascal being a blithering idiot (and supposedly hating Reitman) and movie kept getting shelved until Ramis died. Then Pascal was free to bring in her friend Paul Fieg and have him do the all female Ghostbusters reboot he had pitched her on previously. Then of course when she was forced to step down following the hacks Sony decided to hire yet another blithering idiot, Tom Rothman. So her pet project got to stay and Reitman was pushed aside and not allowed to make changes.
 
Stiler said:
To me it sounds like (from some reviews I've seen) a lot of people are liking it simply to annoying the people who don't like it, it's became a kind of rallying cry for feminism and if you don't like it you're a sexist.
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I thought it was the other way around: that it became a rallying cry for misogynists and if you did like it, you're a feminist.
 
Tiberian said:
I personally don't give a shit that the Ghostbusters themselves are now females
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They have done these race and gender uninspired switcheroos since the 70s, and they always suck. Remember all black version of Wizard of Oz "the Wiz" with Michael Jackson or the black Cinderella, or the crappier remake of Limitless with Scarlett Johansson?

The only exception I can think of that has ever succeeded was the all female version of the Hangover, Bridesmaids. I still didn't like it, but the movie was a success even if it was a ripoff.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I was just on rotten tomatoes, and now it's up to 76%. How does a 30 percentage point jump happen in that short amount of time?
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That's only a 2 point change. It was 74% when Megalith published. His screen cap was for Cream of the Crop reviewers (i.e. critics from top publications along with a few well regarded web based reviewers, like Berardinelli). That group is up to 50%. I don't expect the major publications to publish before Thursday or Friday.
 
The trailers had a number of things going wrong for them (in no particular order):

  1. Horrible Art Direction: inspired by the "Scooby-Doo Movies", it seems. Proton packs that look like the discounted toys no one wants, uninspired uniforms (ripped straight off from the originals) splashed with orange stripes, clashing color schemes, overly black splotches lightened up with smoke generators. Pretty impressive, I suppose -- if you want to make a $150 million USD budgeted movie look like a rejected, straight-to-DVD film from the '90s with budget designs, this is it ...
  2. Lack of Chemistry/Camaraderie: -- the feeling I got was that each actress was being a self-functioning entity, reluctantly working together for the sake of a paycheck. Poor casting decision, and Wiig seems to lack the wry humor and unmitigated, razor-sharp intelligence characteristic of Harold Ramis's Egon Spengler. Ray Stantz is a optimistic geek, NOT a zany fanboy (something Kate McKinnon's character singularly fails to capture, being exactly a zany tech-oriented fangirl in personality). Melissa McCarthy is: Melissa McCarthy. That's very emphatically NOT Bill Murray (but, to be fair, who is? Casting someone in the "Peter Venkman" role is extremely hard, if not impossible). And Ernie Hudson's common-man, understated, "voice of reason" Winston Zeddemore is discarded in favor of an overly dramatic loudmouth (Leslie Jones) who seems to be more at home working for the TSA in NYC's JFK airport than the MTA of New York City. The four original Ghostbuster characters worked because they represented stereotypes that one could see working together in many a workplace. With these four misfits, it looks like they'd be at each other's throats in an hour or less working together.
  3. Not Understanding What Made the Original Film (and even the 2nd one) A Hit: The original film(s) worked because they had 4 straight individuals, in an ordinary, yet hectic environment/backdrop with a heavy dose of cynicism (NYC) dealing with utterly absurd situations and events. In short, it was a humorous and dry horror comedy. The 4 are aware of the paranormal, but the rest of society couldn't care less (Walther Peck and the EPA, suggestions of nerve gas, hallucination, being committed into an insane asylum) until things really got out of hand. It's a classic comedic setup -- great raconteurs almost always deliver their lines with a straight face (no matter how funny the material). Everyone gets a laugh at the end, though. Here, you have 4 stiffly drawn stereotypical "caricatures" who never step out of line and are all too predictable, with a regrettable, rather than humorous, comic-opera backdrop. To add insult to injury, Annie Potts' sharp-tongued, long-suffering "Noo Yawk Gal Friday" Janine Melnitz is replaced with a Ken doll even more plastic than the Mattel toy (Chris Hemsworth), suggesting that a cheap throwaway distraction to a certain target segment of the audience is much more important than a good supporting cast. Apparently the director/producers don't think too highly of the audience's discernment.
  4. Damage Control: This is not about the trailers themselves, but Sony's response to the poor reaction to the trailers, as well as the tactics they've employed in an attempt to get a decent return on their investment ($150 USD million is nothing to sneeze at). Sony deliberately took out many a balanced, yet negative comment on their Youtube trailers and left in the most offensive comments. This served as the agent provocateur (or false flag operation) which attracted the overly emotional comments of many a feminist, who, in their emotional rage, ignored the steaming mess in front of them in favor of "solidarity". I've read many of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's noteworthy that many of the reviewers blame "patriarchy, 4chan, basement dwellers" as the source of the negative comments about the trailers. It's as if the idea that the film itself isn't particularly worthy doesn't even exist in their collective mentality. Impressive groupthink, perhaps -- but simply proving the truism that emotionally-charged intelligence without discernment is equally as foolish as emotionally-charged stupidity without discernment. While it's certainly within reason that Sony has exerted pressure (both direct and indirect) on reviewers to put a positive spin on things, without concrete evidence we can't be sure. We can be sure that Sony is engaging in PR manipulation through ready and willing puppets, though, who will do Sony's work for a very low cost, even free, in many cases (Sony couldn't care less about "feminism", just protecting their almighty greenbacks. After all, they are a company that has to turn profits). Also, as the Sony email leaks showed, Bill Murray was not immune from legal shenanigans to twist his arm, and, if it could happen to Bill Murray, who's to say that it couldn't happen to others (inexplicably, Ernie Hudson had nothing good to say about the film until a few months ago, when he apparently became a true believer, joining Dan Ackroyd).
In short, Sony targeted the Ghostbusters fanbase in search of some easy cash (hoping to get fools with more emotional reactions than common sense), and when that attempt failed because of horrible execution (terrible trailers leading to overwhelming rejection from a large portion of the fanbase), played their "feminist SJW" panic card in an attempt to protect their expensive investment. All in the name of the almighty dollar, of course, which I think isn't going to favor Sony ($150 million USD initial investment plus possibly another $100 million in advertising = $250 million, or the amount spent on the Captain America: Civil War film before advertising costs). A real shame -- Harold Ramis must be turning in his grave right now. Seems that a number of people who allowed/approved this disaster of a film should be covered in green gunk. Where's Slimer when you need him?

I'll end with this scene from Ghostbusters 2:

Ray/Winston: "There's something weird ... and it don't look good ..." (kids chant "He-Man" and desert a depressed looking Ray/Winston)
Ray: "Let's go ... get a beer, alright?"
Winston: "Yeah."

;)

 
krotch said:
Define flop? I bet the movie will generate a lot of money.
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Hard to say. Unlike a lot of movies it won't get to use China to boost it's numbers. China apparently has some kind of ban on ghost movies that also prevented Crimson Peak from being released there. So it's looking like Ghostbusters will miss out on there market (second largest in the world). The NA opening is projected at around $40m, which is okay for this summer but still not good. That means it needs to pull in over $110m before next Monday in order to even make back the $150 production budget opening week and be a good success. Unless projections are VERY low I doubt they'll make back both the production and marketing budget within the week. And the week after Ghostbusters both Trek 3 and Ice Age: whatevernumber release which could cause it to have a massive week-to-week drop off. Depending on how audiences take it to it I wouldn't be surprised if it had a 60-70% drop off it's second weekend. It could still end up being a big hit, but it's not looking promising at the moment. Before it opens in North America there should be some numbers out from various countries. The numbers for this weekend will be interesting to see. It could end up pulling in good numbers or it could be another Fan4stic.
 
Derangel said:
Hard to say. Unlike a lot of movies it won't get to use China to boost it's numbers. China apparently has some kind of ban on ghost movies that also prevented Crimson Peak from being released there. So it's looking like Ghostbusters will miss out on there market (second largest in the world). The NA opening is projected at around $40m, which is okay for this summer but still not good. That means it needs to pull in over $110m before next Monday in order to even make back the $150 production budget opening week and be a good success. Unless projections are VERY low I doubt they'll make back both the production and marketing budget within the week. And the week after Ghostbusters both Trek 3 and Ice Age: whatevernumber release which could cause it to have a massive week-to-week drop off. Depending on how audiences take it to it I wouldn't be surprised if it had a 60-70% drop off it's second weekend. It could still end up being a big hit, but it's not looking promising at the moment. Before it opens in North America there should be some numbers out from various countries. The numbers for this weekend will be interesting to see. It could end up pulling in good numbers or it could be another Fan4stic.
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$150m was the production budget? Wow, that just seems so ridiculous. I thought the $50m it made would have covered the production cost and been some profit. They way overspent. Ya...the movie may just end up a flop. I can see it paying for itself after bluray/dvd sales, but I don't think box office money will do it.
 
krotch said:
$150m was the production budget? Wow, that just seems so ridiculous. I thought the $50m it made would have covered the production cost and been some profit. They way overspent. Ya...the movie may just end up a flop. I can see it paying for itself after bluray/dvd sales, but I don't think box office money will do it.
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$100m+ movies are pretty common these days. Deadpool's $60m budget is considered low for a big Hollywood movie. The budget for Force Awakens was estimated to be something like $245m. Even animated movies are well above that sometimes. Finding Dory had a $200m budget. And those numbers are just production costs, they don't include marketing.
 
krotch said:
Ya...the movie may just end up a flop. I can see it paying for itself after bluray/dvd sales, but I don't think box office money will do it.
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If it flopped in the theater it will be worse for DVD and Blu-ray sales since fewer people buy them these days (sales are way down). It's mostly a home theater enthusiast / collector thing. This isn't one of those movies that will have a cult following.
 
Perhaps if enough of these reboots/remakes fails it'll prompt Hollywood to fire all the old slack ass screenwriters and get some new blood in the mix so we can get some new material. At some point hopefully someone with a brain or at least a modicum of intelligence will sit back and look at what all the failures are doing to their economy out there in "Movie Land" and say "You know, this just ain't working..."

But then again, they're just humans so... :p
 
dark_reign said:
If it flopped in the theater it will be worse for DVD and Blu-ray sales since fewer people buy them these days (sales are way down). It's mostly a home theater enthusiast / collector thing. This isn't one of those movies that will have a cult following.
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I think it'll do alright. Although, I don't know if dvd/blu-ray sales to things like Redbox and Netflix are considered normal sales or if they're some kind of licensing fees involved. I think it can pay for itself, considering it's already made 1/3rd of what the budget was. I have no idea what it's plans are for outside US sales.
 
For a movie of any kind to "make it" or be considered a success there's the unspoken but much maligned "Rule of 3" in Hollywood meaning a movie has to pull in box office of at least 3x the production budget - not DVD/Blu-ray/online sales, but box office receipts (worldwide is a given) of at least 3x that budget or it just isn't successful. Now, some movies do get considered as successes even in spite of them not really pulling in that amount or anything close to it, they develop that cult-style following that keeps them going for many years, sometimes decades even though they were not originally box office successes.

I'm not sure this movie will get to that point but as stated before when it does get released not only here in the US but worldwide I'm pretty sure a lot of the income it earns will be outside of the US itself, that's just my feeling on it but I could be way off because that does happen sometimes. I have no intentions of seeing it as I stated previously, I've never even bothered to watch any of the trailers - I was watching some TV earlier today and started seeing placements in commercials for other products which is expected, but I haven't seen an actual "Ghostbusters" commercial for the movie itself so far (I only turn my TV on every few days anymore).

Other than Star Trek: Beyond there's nothing on the summer movie horizon still to come that I find appealing in most any respects, sadly.
 
4saken said:
I have a feeling after the liberal media turning this into a Trump supporter woman hating slant on why this movie has such horrible hype, that some reviewers are being paid to fluff their views of the flick.
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This is going to show who was paid off by sony.
 
krotch said:
I think it'll do alright. Although, I don't know if dvd/blu-ray sales to things like Redbox and Netflix are considered normal sales or if they're some kind of licensing fees involved. I think it can pay for itself, considering it's already made 1/3rd of what the budget was. I have no idea what it's plans are for outside US sales.
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DVD rentals are way down as well. Redbox won't be around much longer. Netflix might save the day. Ghostbusters could make money if they can get the masses to show up in theaters for a half-assed film. Without the original cast I don't see it happening.
 
dark_reign said:
DVD rentals are way down as well. Redbox won't be around much longer. Netflix might save the day. Ghostbusters could make money if they can get the masses to show up in theaters for a half-assed film. Without the original cast I don't see it happening.
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Nah, I don't see them trying to make a second one if this one doesn't rake in a hell of a lot more money from box offices. I still see them making quite a profit still though. Just not enough to do it again.
 
One thing to keep in mind about RT now, they are owned by Fandango (a ticket selling company), so its not in their best interest to show any movie with a really shitty score lest it impact ticket sales.

So RT isn't really a fair scoring site anymore imho.

Fandango is owned by NBCUniversal as a note.
 
While we're on the topic of raping childhood memories, the warcraft movie was particularly guilty of this. One of the worst movies I've seen in recent times
 
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