Before I get into how horribly my NFL week one picks went this past weekend (my post will come tomorrow following the two Monday Night games happening as I type this), I've got a breaking story on the digging up another 1980's franchise from under a rock front.Rumors have been circling for a few months now that a "Ghostbusters" sequel was in the works with Judd Apatow (Writer/Director of "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up," producer of "Walk Hard," "Superbad," and "Step Brothers") at the helm along with original writers and stars of the original films, Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis. The connection came with Harold Ramis playing the father of Seth Rogen in "Knocked Up," and Apatow co-producing "Year One," an upcoming comedy Ramis is directing, starring Jack Black and Michael Cera.
All four actors from the original 2 "Ghostbusters" films, Akroyd, Ramis, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson recently did voice work for an upcoming video game due to come out in 2009. In an email to Chicago Tribune entertainment columnist Mark Caro, Ramis said that currently his "Year One" writing team Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (also behind the NBC hit comedy series, "The Office") are working on a script. Ramis also went on to say that Sony is "hoping to tap into some of the same acting talent" as Apatow's other films. If you are a fan of Apatow, this is great news. The potential here, is for actors such as Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Michael Cera, or possibly Jason Segal (star of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," or Craig Robinson (Darryl in "The Office," the hilarious nightclub doorman in "Knocked Up").
While I want to be excited about this, I'm also a bit skeptical. I was also excited when I heard they were making another "Indiana Jones" film, but that turned out to be a dookie sandwich with aliens. I remember back in the 1990's when the rumors were flying around that they were going to make another "Ghostbusters" film, this one with Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Chris Farley. Then, when Farley died of a drug overdose in 1997, it echoed the same occurrence in the original film, when John Belushi's role was taken over by Bill Murray (a little known fact). Now that would have been a great film, the passing of the baton from one great "Saturday Night Live" generation to the next.Too bad the best days of SNL are long gone, and this new pairing, as funny as Apatow's films are, wouldn't be the "Ghostbusters" of old. Apatow's humor is more in line with "Animal House" and "Stripes," a far cry from the underlying innocence and slapsticky "Ghostbusters." There was the subtle adult humor but these films were, after all, rated PG.
I'm a huge fan of Apatow's comedies, but it is evident that the resurrection of "Ghostbusters," if it were meant to be, would have happened much closer to 1989 when the second one was released. Ironically, this was the same year the last "Indiana Jones" film that was actually worth watching was released. 5 years stood between the first and second "Ghostbusters" films, 20 years before another one seems ill advised.
I'm going to call it as I see it here: this film is only being made for the purpose of generating money. Any artistic credibility they had went out the window with the 1990's. If the film was meant to be for the fans, then they wouldn't have made the fans wait 20 years for it, plain and simple. No sugar coating can change this fact, so immediately, this movie has one strike against it since the fourth "Indiana Jones" film wasted the "we were waiting for the right story and script to come along" excuse. If that miserable excuse of a movie was the script they were waiting 20 years for, then Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas should have retired somewhere between "Jurassic Park" and "The Phantom Menace." At the urging of the respective film studios who have steadily seen declines in ticket sales over the past few years as prices go up, these films are rearing their filthy heads into our nostalgic hearts, and we keep paying to see them, hoping, wishing, praying that we'll see a glimmer of what we once did.
The picture Ramis is painting for this one is having him and the other originals be present in a mentor-like capacity, with the younger busters taking over. Originally, the buzz was that the new group would be the 4 main guys from "The 40 Year Old Virgin," Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Rogen, and Romany Malco. This team seems to be more true to the original film's formula and age range (maybe it's Carell's doofy, child-like performance as Brick in "Anchorman").
Regardless of the cast, I'll be one of the first in line to see this movie, wearing my vintage $5"Ghostbusters" t-shirt, in all my dorky glory, repeating such vintage lines as: "When someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES," "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria," and "Okay, who brought the dog?" Whether it succeeds, or even gets made is a story yet to be told. I'm willing to bet it will make tons of money, maybe not up there with the $400 million or so Indy 4 made, but this film will also cost a lot less as well since it's a comedy first and foremost. By the looks of Hollywood desperation, and original ideas being in a drought as of late with regurgitated old franchises and remakes that should never happen, this film will be made. I hope another 20 years in the making sequel doesn't make me question my childhood taste in movies twice in 2 years; that's all I got to say about that.
Below is the link to Mark Caro's Chicago Tribune blog which broke the news:
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