I think messing with the Ghostbusters formula to make it more commercially/broadly appealing would be to the franchise's detriment, as I've alluded to when this line of discussion came up before.Ghostbusters: Afterlife was essentially a family drama about reconciling the past and the future, wrapped in a Ghostbusters skin. It was very much a Jason Reitman movie, rather than an Ivan Reitman one. So, I'm not sure I'm persuaded that you can't mess with the 'Ghostbusters formula', because I would argue but for the GB equipment and ghosts, they're very different genres.
Ghostbusters is a paranormal comedy franchise, if you sacrifice the comedy aspect to include a level of horror the franchise hasn't previously had outside, say, Ghostbusters: Infestation, then I think you risk turning the franchise into a Conjuring/Paranormal Activity/Spectral copy.
There’s no trade-off between comedy and horror. Leaning into more horror, doesn't mean less comedy. In fact, some of the best horror films I’ve seen have moments of wonderful humour.
The overarching point I’m making is that if we all want to keep seeing live-action Ghostbusters films, we need to be honest with ourselves about the current state of the industry and the box office potential of the franchise. Ultimately, the budgets have to come down in order to make larger profit margins.
With respect to Jason and Gil. If you were their boss and looked at the budgets and profits of their last two films, Frozen Empire and Saturday Night Live, you probably wouldn’t be in any rush to say, “Here’s another $150 million, go make another Ghostbusters film.”
But if you said, “We’ve got $50–75 million and we want to do something fresh and new to restore enthusiasm in audiences for Ghostbusters,” then they might listen.
Anyway, to allay any fears from hardcore fans they could be spin-offs in different locations.
Statistics: Posted by MovieFacts — October 12th, 2025, 6:18 am