Ghostbusters: Afterlife | November 19 2021 | Sony | Delayed again

[OncomingStorm93]

1 minute ago, WittyUsername said:

The budget’s going to be that low? 

Per Aykroyd, yes. Here's an interview with him from this past May. The following selection (with my emphasis) is him talking about the overspending on GB16, and how that has resulted in a low-budget GB20.

 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/aykroyd-eyes-making-ghostbusters-prequel-for-as-little-as-we-can-spend-1.4426686

 

CP: Your "Ghostbusters" reboot has taken a long time to come to the screen.

 

Aykroyd: (Original director) Ivan Reitman's son Jason has written a beautiful script, I can't say too much about it but it's going to get made and hopefully there'll be some familiar faces.... But I don't want to discount the work that the girls did with Paul Feig. I kind of got mad, but I realized I should have blamed myself as a producer, the costs were out of control, I should have been watching as a producer a little more, but you don't dispute with your director.

You hire a director, you trust a director, you trust their vision. But the job that (stars) Kate (McKinnon), and Kristen (Wiig), and Leslie (Jones) and Melissa (McCarthy) did and indeed Paul did on that movie was superior, or superb. We would have done another one but, again, the cost overruns prevented the studio from looking at it and doing another ladies' movie....

Now we're going to do it in a sensible way. Costs will be under control and it'll be brought in for a sensible budget without waste and that's what's important now in getting it made.

 

CP: What's the budget?

 

Aykroyd: It's definitely going to be way under $100 (million). I would think. Movies cost a lot today. It can't be $30 (million), $50 (million) would be stretching it. I don't know. Listen, it's going to be as little as we can spend.

[Napoleon]

More like next year's Charlie's Angels than Terminator Dark Fate then

[Zakiyyah6]

I like Ghostbusters 2016 but I always thought that budget was outrageous. I have no idea why near 150mil was spent on a movie with no stars that would appeal to the international market nor would that kind of comedy appeal to the international market as well. They are doing what Terminator Dark Fate should have done, keeping the budget at a reasonable level so that the movie doesn't have to gross 500mil in order to be successful.

[ShinyDave]

4 hours ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

I like Ghostbusters 2016 but I always thought that budget was outrageous. I have no idea why near 150mil was spent on a movie with no stars that would appeal to the international market nor would that kind of comedy appeal to the international market as well. They are doing what Terminator Dark Fate should have done, keeping the budget at a reasonable level so that the movie doesn't have to gross 500mil in order to be successful.

Sometimes the conspiracist in me wonders if Ghostbusters 2016 was built to fail, to go "we gave women a chance to lead a tentpole and it didn't work, let's not do that again!"

 

It's a ridiculous thought, but no more ridiculous than greenlighting a $150m horror comedy, even one using a highly established IP.

[Noctis]

With the plethora of stories and potential projects out there that's just dying to be adapted, they go with fucking Ghostbusters - an utterly irrelevant franchise. 

[Krissykins]

7 hours ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

I like Ghostbusters 2016 but I always thought that budget was outrageous. I have no idea why near 150mil was spent on a movie with no stars that would appeal to the international market nor would that kind of comedy appeal to the international market as well. They are doing what Terminator Dark Fate should have done, keeping the budget at a reasonable level so that the movie doesn't have to gross 500mil in order to be successful.

Melissa McCarthy is a star, her profile was certainly high when that was greenlit. Plus, didn’t she get $12m for it? I think Wiig got $8m. 
 

$144m is too much when you’re trying to reboot a franchise. Shooting in NY for some of it would’ve been very costly too I assume. 

[ShinyDave]

They assumed that Melissa McCarthy meant tentpole numbers - and in the mid-2010s that was certainly not indefensible, but she's never been an obvious choice as the go-to for a $150m would-be international megahit. Give her (and Feig) a good script and a mid-budget production and you could get major ROI on your $50m + P&A, and that got proven multiple times in the first half of the 10s.

 

Ghostbusters '16 was arguably Exhibit A of the limits to Hollywood's focus on big-budget tentpole plays and proven IP. You had a proven IP that couldn't work internationally, but they tried to turn it into a tentpole anyway. Ghostbusters is a winning IP, sure, but it's got very specific ways it wins.

[Barnack]

18 hours ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

I have no idea why near 150mil was spent on a movie

Outside the costly genre of CGI sci-fi action, the franchise needed the OK of a lot of legacy attached people to get made:

Produced by 

Dan Aykroyd	...	executive producer
Ali Bell	...	executive producer
Paul Feig	...	executive producer
Jessie Henderson	...	executive producer
Michele Imperato	...	executive producer (as Michele Imperato Stabile)
Joe Medjuck	...	executive producer
Amy Pascal	...	producer
James Paul	...	associate producer
Alex Plapinger	...	associate producer
Tom Pollock	...	executive producer
Eric Reich	...	associate producer
Ivan Reitman	...	producer

 

 

 

A bit like for Sony Pixel, they did not try to swing for the fence by many of the decision, that made certain that it's minimum bar was rather high but the ceiling WW was not high at all (complete opposite of what they did with say Men In Black International)

[Napoleon]

To be fair, Ghostbusters 2016 was meant to cost around $100 million. The extra money was because of reshoots, according to a Dan Aykroyd rant against Paul Feig later.

[Barnack]

The negotiation started with a 125M to 150M net budget and with box office bonus benchmark starting at 500m WW, not sure I would buy that it was a 100M movie that derailed narrative.

[kitik]

Smart to keep the budget "low" on this.

 

I haven't been following too closely, but am I understanding correctly that this won't be the usual setup, instead it'll be set in a small town and focused on one family? If so, I approve. Seems like it might feel different enough to be enjoyable.

 

[Barnack]

4 minutes ago, kitik said:

Smart to keep the budget "low" on this.

 

I haven't been following too closely, but am I understanding correctly that this won't be the usual setup, instead it'll be set in a small town and focused on one family? If so, I approve. Seems like it might feel different enough to be enjoyable.

 

From what transpired it seem to be Stranger Things/It the Ghostbuster version, those aesthetic/casting choice would match the budget well.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Barnack

[Napoleon]

 

[Jonwo]

$80-100m sounds about right, Shazam cost that and it looked decent. 

[marveldcfox]

Borrowing from Resident Evil movie...same studio too! 

Lol. 

[antovolk]

Time to update the thread title

[Krissykins]

Afterlife lol. 
 

I wouldn’t be surprised if this makes less than the 2016 film domestically. 

[WittyUsername]

1 minute ago, Krissykins said:

Afterlife lol. 
 

I wouldn’t be surprised if this makes less than the 2016 film domestically. 

It supposedly has a significantly lower budget, so I guess that wouldn’t matter. 

[Krissykins]

1 minute ago, WittyUsername said:

It supposedly has a significantly lower budget, so I guess that wouldn’t matter. 

Oh it definitely matters.  

[dudalb]

I love the original 1984 Ghostbusters , but just let the fraNchise rest in peace.