Should Ghostbusters (2016) get a sequel?

Hollywood's attempts to determine if one of their productions is successful enough to receive a follow-up is often met with mixed results. And I'm not talking about when a studio plans ahead on sequels they could make if their movies are successful, like with Marvel's line-up or with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies; I'm talking about looking at the numbers after the film is released and deciding if a sequel is warranted. Deadpool was such a massive, humongous hit at the box office that Fox greenlit a sequel after the first weekend. On the other hand, a follow-up to Pacific Rim wasn't on Warner Bros.'s agenda until two or three months after its release. Pushing numbers aside, though, the other thing to look at is whether or not a film needs a follow-up, because not raising this question can lead to very forced, unentertaining results (LOOKING AT YOU, HANGOVER "TRILOGY"!) I bring all this up to set up the presentation of my thoughts on a topic that's been circulating a lot of news sites as well as a few discussion boards, that being whether or not Paul Feig's recent Ghostbusters remake should become a series.

BTW, none of this is intended to be a review of the film. Here's my spoiler-free review of the film, and here's my spoiler review, if that's what you're looking for.

I figured the best way to express my thoughts on this matter was to break down this matter into several questions.

Is Ghostbusters going to make enough money at the box office to warrant a sequel?

As of August 5th, 2016, the film currently holds a box office gross of over $162 million, according to Box Office Mojo, barely surpassing its $144 million production budget. The domestic gross, which I figured would be the highest number that this movie would ever see, is over $110 million. The film still has yet to be released in several parts of the world, so the international gross still has a fighting chance to rack in some extra dough, but the film was also banned from release in China, so chances are the numbers will still look pretty slim. Also, the film still has a chance to gain a lot of momentum on DVD, Blu-Ray, and streaming, pretty much the same way that Austin Powers became a big Hollywood capitalization.

Technically, the film isn't a failure; films like The Nice Guys or The BFG are failures because they couldn't even make their budgets back. With that said, though, my biggest concern is that if the studio decides to scrape their extremely small profit from this barely successful production and make a follow-up, the film definitely won't live up to what good aspects the first film had to hold, because part of the benefit came from its big budget. I know that Deadpool 2 is going to be amazing because the filmmakers were able to do an incredible job with the small budget they had for the first film, and it made such a huge profit at the box office that it's surefire to get an even bigger budget with better effects and big-name stars. One of the biggest benefits to Ghostbusters, however, was its big-budget, action-packed climax, but since the film didn't make that much of a profit at the box office, we're most likely not going to get that, meaning they'll cram a lot of the other aspects of the film in to fill in the gaps, meaning good aspects, like Chris Hemsworth and Kate McKinnon, will be abused, while bad aspects, like the pointless improv comedy from Melissa McCarthy, will be inflated. Who would want to see that?

Should Ghostbusters be a franchise/series to begin with?

The original Ghostbusters (1984) is considered by many to be a lightning in a bottle success on many levels; a classic, magical formula that will never be recaptured. Everyone involved with the original attempted this with Ghostbusters II, and even they couldn't figure out what made the original work so well. For this reason, a lot of people feel that Ghostbusters should have been a one-movie deal and nothing more.

However, just because no movie can recapture its magic doesn't mean there shouldn't be follow-ups. Take The Dark Knight Rises, for instance; obviously, no superhero movie, let alone Batman movie, is going to recapture the awe-inspiring power of The Dark Knight, but that's not why a follow-up was made. A follow-up was made because there were still story elements that needed to be tied up, and there were still villains from the series that fans wanted to see. On that same note, there are still a lot of potential for creative ideas within this one lightning in a bottle 80s comedy that could be uncovered. What if the Ghostbusters were to time travel? What if the Ghostbusters dealt with psychics or magicians? Hell, that's just naming the ideas off the top of my head; there's probably artists and writers out there that would kill for this opportunity for creativity!

Should THIS Ghostbusters team get another go-around as opposed to the original?

People have been begging for years to see Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and Dan Aykroyd in another follow-up to one of their favorite childhood comedies; that's the team they wanted to see assembled for another go-around. Instead, what we got was a completely different team of comedy actresses that ended up in a huge backlash as well as a boycott. However, once the critical reception turned out positive, some people got curious and gave it a go. While some people found it to be just as bad as they thought it would be, others were genuinely surprised at how well these people worked together. There's already cosplays of this team at cons, and I imagine they'll be a smash hit at Halloween. However, even though this team is getting a following, it's tough to say if it's big enough to throw another multi-million dollar budget at it; again, the box office numbers will determine that.

If they do make a sequel, what needs to happen?

This section might be a little shorter than my other ones, because Grace Randolph on BeyondTheTrailer covered quite a bit of ground on this matter in her video from a few weeks ago.

Let me just list a few things off to make things organized:

-As I mentioned earlier, I would only want to see a Ghostbusters sequel if I knew it was going to have that big-budget action that the first film had; that was one of the few things that the remake did better than the original.

-Melissa McCarthy's character, Abby, needs a more distinguishing identity. The rest of the characters play essential roles, and Kate McKinnon in particular is doing this whole comedy character thing right, but McCarthy is just a stand-in to fill in a lot of the comedy gaps with her improv routines. We need less of that and more intentional writing for her.

-I agree with Grace about a male equivalent of Sigourney Weaver's character from the original. Chris Hemsworth is great in his role, but Erin's crush on Kevin can't really be anything more than a comedic routine. We need a more serious romantic interest. However, I'm thinking more like an Aaron Eckhart or maybe Jason Bateman for the role. Benedict Cumberbatch, I think, would be better for another role....

-Benedict Cumberbatch should play a male version of Gozer. They already teased Zuul in the post-credits scene, they've already gender-reversed the rest of the characters... THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN! As far as Vince Clortho and Zuul go, though, since they're already opposite genders, reversing their genders, I think, would be pretty pointless.

-As I mentioned earlier, if a series is going to occur from all this, there needs to be some variety. Rehashing the original set-up is lazy and pointless. Now that the Ghostbusters are funded by the city, there's no reason for them to go out of business like in the original. (And if the writers found a contrived way, I would be so mad.....)

-More professional behavior at the PA department. Seriously, it felt like a five-year-old started speaking on Paul Feig's behalf.

To wrap things up, let's answer the question in the friggin title.

Should Ghostbusters (2016) get a sequel?

My ultimate answer to this question is no.

If it does get a sequel, I probably wouldn't mind seeing it if it turned out good. It probably won't, as I mentioned above, even though it has the potential to, as I mentioned above, but if it did, it could be fun to check out. However, I don't think very many people are going to see it, I don't think this was the surefire win that Sony was looking for, and I think throwing money at a follow-up would be a waste of money on everybody's part. I think the best thing to do is to put this franchise to rest and bring it back when there's a better line-up of comedians that everyone wants to see in a movie together. Once that happens, then another Ghostbusters would probably be an enormous hit.

Keep in mind, this isn't just an iconic name we're talking about; this is a bankable, timeless premise of four funny comedians using zany gadgets to battle ghosts. On top of that, it's obvious that Ghostbusters has a lot of attention; if the movie itself was viewed as much as the trailer on Youtube, the film would have made over $380 million at the box office already. So, it's not like people don't want to see another Ghostbusters; it's that they didn't want to see THIS Ghostbusters. This just felt like a forced out attempt to bank on something that deserved a more timeless approach, and until the studio is ready to take that approach, I don't think a sequel is either needed or wanted.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!