It's no secret that the female-led 2016 Ghostbusters reboot didn't go as planned, to put it delicately. Much has been made of the movie's failure at the box office and the botched marketing campaign that put a sour taste in the mouths of moviegoers early on. Despite that, director Paul Feig had plans laid out for a sequel and now, he's revealed what he would have done with Ghostbusters 2.
Paul Feig is about to release his first movie since Ghostbusters in theaters this weekend with A Simple Favor. While promoting his latest directorial effort on the latest episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Feig discussed some of what he wanted to do with a sequel, had he been given the chance to make one. Part of that would have involved taking the female team of ghost fighting do-gooders international. Here's what Feig had to say about it.
"I definitely wanted us to go to another country. Because when we were doing the press tour, the international press tour, every country the reporters would come with these drawings or artist renderings of that country's ghosts. And every country has these really wild ghost stories and ghost characters that they scare kids with or keep people in line with. I really loved the idea of the Ghostbusters going to like Asia. Yeah, so there's a lot of fun stuff what we could have done."
Few movies receive the amount of hate that the reboot of Ghostbusters did online and Paul Feig has always handled it with pure class. While the director has acknowledged where things went wrong, he's maintained his affection for the cast and desire to make Ghostbusters 2 happen. But from Sony's perspective, it simply wouldn't make any financial sense to do so, no matter how fun it may be to see different versions of ghosts from all around the world.
The reboot brought in a grand total of $229 million at the global box office. For a pure comedy, that would be considered quite good. However, this movie is a blend of CGI-heavy action and comedy, which came with a hefty price tag of $144 million. That means Sony definitely lost some money on the deal and, given the, at best, lukewarm reception from fans, rolling the dice on what sounds like an even pricier sequel would make little to no sense.
Despite the hate, critics actually embraced Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reasonably well, as the movie currently holds a 74 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Though, the 51 percent audience rating may be more telling. Feig has moved on from holding out hope for Ghostbusters 2 and it looks like he's bounced back quite nicely. Reviews so far for A Simple Favor have been overwhelmingly positive and the movie looks to do well this weekend at the box office. For more with Feig, check out his episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Topics: Ghostbusters 3, Ghostbusters 4
