After Jason Reitman announced he was making a new Ghostbusters movie, titled Ghostbusters Afterlife, there was a bit of uneasiness about it. There’s no denying Reitman is a brilliant director but the 2016 all-female Ghostbusters film didn’t exactly cover the world in slime, so whether a new instalment was even necessary is a valid question among the fandom.
After watching the first Ghostbusters Afterlife trailer, it seems like all those fears are unfounded because Jason Reitman appears to have done something fresh with the franchise and he’s roped in an all-star cast that includes Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace and Paul Rudd to do it.
The most interesting aspect of Ghostbusters Afterlife isn’t how it’s a direct sequel to the original 80s films – this new one is set in the present and focuses on the family of Egon Spengler – it’s how this instalment confirms that it will ignore the 2016 all-female film altogether.
Jason Reitman previously touched on this and it drew a bit of controversy, particularly from Ghostbusters (the 2016 one) star Leslie Jones, who went on a profanity-filled tirade on Twitter over how her film got snubbed.
Some folks will get upset over how the 2016 film has been ignored while the die-hard Ghostbusters will rejoice over the same fact. But the reality is that this supposed “snub” isn’t anything to be worked up about. This has nothing to do with quality or any notion of gender bias.
Yes Afterlife ignores the 2016 Ghostbusters, but it’s perfectly okay to do so because it is a direct sequel whereas the all-female film is a reboot that basically ignores all previously established plot points and characters. Both movies exist in different continuities within the franchise universe and both can independently be a thing without being explicitly connected.
Hell, Terminator: Dark Fate pulled this exact same trick and there was barely a peep over how that film ignored T3, Salvation and Genysis.
So let’s not get our streams all crossed over about this weird little timeline/continuity thing. The 2016 Ghostbusters film is its own thing, regardless of whether you liked it or not, and so is Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters Afterlife when it comes out in July 2020.
Rather than get caught up over any dumb arguments over this, let’s ponder a more important fact about Afterlife: Finn Wolfhard is yet again fighting yet another supernatural being that originated in the 80s.
As a wise man once said, call it fate, call it luck, call it karma, everything happens for a reason.
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