This week and the preceding
weekend have been seeing plenty of reveals in terms of the latest crop of
upcoming blockbusters for the following year. These films run the gamut of
themes and genre, from a “conventional” spy film flick a la James Bond in “Not
Time to Die,” to a more superhero-like spy adventure in Marvel’s “Black Widow,”
to a legendary epic in Disney’s live-action “Mulan” remake, to a period-piece
superhero interquel in Warner-DC’s “Wonder Woman 1984.” But for those audiences
looking for more spooky fare, as well as another returning media franchise,
then this trailer is for you.
Forbes has it that Sony Pictures has released their first ever
trailer for “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” the long in-development follow-up to the
1980s film franchise developed by Dan Ackroyd and the late Harold Ramis.
Disregarding the divisive 2016 reboot, “Afterlife” will pick up story-wise from
the original two movies, occurring three decades after 1989’s “Ghostbusters II.”
The distant sequel will be helmed generation-wise by original filmmaker Ivan
Reitman’s son Jason Reitman. In addition to the spooky hauntings that are
expected of the franchise, there is also the element of mystery as to how the
new cast of characters is connected to the team of paranormal investigators.
Sony, via Columbia Pictures and
Ghost Corps, has managed to keep the secret of the primary cast, a family, by
not giving them a last name in promotional materials. As the trailer shows, a
single mother and her two children move to the Oklahoma town of Summerville to
live in an old house inherited from the kids’ grandfather. Summerville is
regularly troubled with a strange shaking of the ground, despite having no
seismic history or fault lines. While exploring their new home, the children
discover some telltale equipment and an old customized combination car called
Ecto-1, revealing that their family has ties to the Ghostbusters.
While there has been a bitter
taste from the poorly-promoted 2016 “Ghostbusters” reimagining with its
all-female team of lead characters, it is refreshing to note that “Ghostbusters:
Afterlife,” beyond establishing continuity with the first two movies, is not
presenting itself as a sharp reaction to the previous installment. The fact
that the main characters are a teen brother-sister team makes for a
gender-balance dynamic. And of course, the fact that the surviving original
cast of Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie
Potts will also appear as their characters is a plus, even if they were nowhere
around in the released trailer.
Written by Jason Reitman and Gil
Kenan, and with Ivan Reitman producing, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” arrives in
cinemas next July 2020.
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