'Ghostbusters' Ain't Dead Yet, Says Ivan Reitman: An Animated Movie in 2019?
Last summer’s female-led Ghostbusters reboot was dogged by pre-release controversy and, while it eventually earned $128.3 million at the domestic box office, ended up tagged as a box office disappointment. But in a new interview, franchise overseer Ivan Reitman makes it clear that, no matter the supposed letdown of Paul Feig’s 2016 do-over, he believes there’s still life in the concept — including future sequels.
In a new chat with io9 regarding an upcoming VR Ghostbusters project, Reitman — who helmed both the 1984 fan favorite, as well as its dreary 1989 sequel — says plans are moving forward for further Ghostbusters ventures, including an animated feature (eyed for 2019 or 2020) and, yes, more live-action installments:
“We jumped into an animated film [after the last movie] and we are developing live-action films. I want to bring all these stories together as a universe that makes sense within itself. Part of my job right now is to do that…It depends on how fast we can get it all together. It’s hard to make an animated film.”
While some might scoff at such an idea — questioning if last year’s film’s poor showing indicates a moderate-at-best interest in further adventures, much less a desire for some sort of extended Ghostbusters movie universe — Reitman contends the performance of Feig’s film implies otherwise, even if he might have done things differently himself:
“We certainly would’ve loved to have a larger hit. But considering the last film was almost 30 years ago, it really did extremely well. I think the film cost too much, frankly, and that’s the real issue. I personally had other points of view in terms of where the film should go and it was kind of a continuous conversation with Paul [Feig] about that. But Paul was the filmmaker on this one and he’s a very talented director. I wanted to give him enough room to do the film he thought it should be.”
When Yahoo Movies spoke with Feig last year, he told us that any potential sequel plans would be decided by Columbia Pictures (no matter how many follow-up teases his movie contained); whether the studio is on board with Reitman’s vision remains unknown. Head over to io9 for more from Reitman about his ectoplasm-drenched series.
‘Ghostbusters’: Watch the 2016 movie’s Blu-ray/DVD trailer:
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