The mysterious saga of the Ghostbusters franchise continues. Paul Feig is currently underway on his gender-bending Ghostbusters reboot. There were rumors that Sony was developing a second Ghostbusters movie in the hopes of landing Channing Tatum and Chris Pratt in the leads, but Ivan Reitman was quick to pull back on those comments, saying that there is only one new Ghostbusters movie, and the "rest is just noise". Now, The Wrap reports that Sony is looking to expand their franchise in another direction with a Ghostbusters animated movie, with Reitman himself producing. Just noise, eh?
Like the beloved 1984 film and the 1986 Ghostbusters cartoon, the animated action comedy will follow a group of scientists team up to fend off the ghosts and ghouls invading Manhattan with the help of gizmos and gadgetry.
It certainly would make sense for Sony to dig deep into this particular franchise, which is a heavyweight nostalgia-baiter, and just generally a fun world to play in. The studio has had a notoriously difficult year following the devastating hack, as well as a critically and commercially rough summer at the box office (Pixels, Aloha, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2) , so there's definitely some credibility to the idea that they would want to double down on such a beloved IP. While they've got a good thing going with Marvel now that they've agreed to share Spider-Man, a single franchise isn't enough to keep a major studio in the green these days.
Feig's female-led Ghostbuster Reboot has drawn more (like, way more) than its fair share of ire from purist fans of the original franchsie -- the the point that Feig recently straight up told haters to go fuck themselves. Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon will be starring in the lead roles, along with Chris Hemsworth in the secretarial role. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Sigourney Weaver are all on board for cameo roles, with Annie Potts reported to have already shot a scene.
While the new cast looks great, and the return of original castmembers is exciting for fans of the original series, neither of them exactly scream "youth appeal". If the male-led Ghostbusters film isn't moving forward, an animated feature could be just the ticket to rope in the kids without encroaching into Feig's territory.
What say you? Interested in a Ghostbusters animated feature? Think this is the right move for sony? Still super pissed about all those womenz getting their lady bits all over the Ecto-1? Sound off in the comments.
