Rant: That Ghostbusters remake still bothers me

I was talking to my cousin Dave from Pittsburgh last weekend and he said the 2016 Ghostbusters was 'fine, just not needed.' And honestly, that hit different because I realized I agree. Nobody asked for a reboot of a classic comedy, especially one that didn't bring anything new to the table. Has anyone else had a conversation that made you see a bad remake in a new light?

2 comments

2 Comments

rose_hart27d ago

My cousin said the same thing and I kinda pushed back on it. The original is a sacred cow for sure but the 2016 one had some genuinely funny moments with a cast that was stacked, Leslie Jones stole every scene she was in. Maybe it wasn't needed but it wasn't the disaster people made it out to be either, especially compared to some of those straight to streaming remakes we got later.

violamurray27d ago

The 2016 Ghostbusters actually made more money overseas than people realize, it did $229 million globally. @rose_hart, you nailed it about Leslie Jones being a scene stealer, that moment where she swings the subway pole into the demon was pure physical comedy gold. But here's something nobody talks about: the real issue wasn't the cast or the jokes, it was the fact that the director Paul Feig had to fight Sony to even get that budget and they kept cutting his original cut. The extended edition has a whole subplot about Rowan's motivation that makes him a way better villain, and they got rid of it for time. So the movie we got was already a compromised version of what could have been a genuinely solid comedy. That's the part that always gets overlooked when people trash it.