Now this is just my opinion of course so anybody reading this feel free to agree or disagree with it, but if you ask me Afterlife succeeded where Disney failed with Star Wars.
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Iād say that AFTERLIFE was a success. 
I agree. After Life on Netflix is a success. Ricky Gervais is great in it!
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Iād be a lot more comfortable of itās success if we got an end of promo cycle announcement like āGBA made over $200m, surpassed expectations, plenty more in store in futureā kind of thing.
I donāt know if the quietness is because the level of success didnāt quite meeting Sonyās expectations? Or Ivanās passing understandably putting Ghost Corp on a period of time out and reflection? Or if Jason and Gil are busy planning what other projects go ahead.
However as Iāve said in other threads my gut instinct is we get an Afterlife sequel in 2024. However I donāt think Afterlife will be the only strand going forward.
In Afterlife we get to see the original gang, Peter, Ray, Winston, and even Egon back together. Just like in the good old days when the first two Ghostbusters movies came out. And they did a very beautiful sendoff to the late Harold Ramis.
Now with the new Star Wars movies, lots of fans were hoping to see Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie back together in action and there was tons of disappointment when we didnāt get to see that. We get to see that in Ghostbuster Afterlife but we donāt get to see that in the Disney Star Wars movies. Disney has really disappointed me. Thumbs up to Afterlife, thumbs down to the Disney Star Wars movies.
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Something that made that much money with an open ended story will absolutely have something coming
Ya theyāll announce the follow up when itās a good time. I wouldnāt be surprised if itās already being worked on. I personally never doubted a part 3 would eventually happen but Iām sure it wonāt take that long again. Haha.
My feeling on this? I donāt think that there will be a sequel with the current cast (Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Celeste OāConnor, Logan Kim) as there is no guarantee of them coming back for a sequel, or that Columbia and Ghost Corps can get them back for one. If what Iāve just said happens, then Columbia and Ghost Corps will have to create new characters for a future movie.
I agree Celeste OāConnor is questionable because she was not as prominent and we donāt know how into it she is. Logan Kim seems to be into it but it would have to be specifically written to include either of them.
I think Finn Wolfhard would return since Trevor is also Egonās grandson and McKenna Grace loves GB. Iām positive she would return. I donāt know what makes you think she wouldnāt or they couldnāt get her back. Unless you mean as a group.
Iāll be very upset if they introduce a whole new team who work for Winston and Ray. The game is fine but itād be so weird if the next movie side steps Afterlife.
A continuity sequel **needs **to feature Phoebe and Podcast. Theyāre the breakout successes from Afterlife. Plus Phoebeās character is, strangely, the major through-line between the originals and the new movie, moreso than Ray or Winston even.
McKenna and Logan are stars in the making so signing either up for future sequels would be a huge get. I thought Celeste was underrated as Lucky, she has the comedy chops to deliver way more in a sequel, plus they already set up her character arc as wanting to move away from Summerville. Finn was good overall but didnāt quite land his comic delivery, I dunno what the deal was there because he was hilarious in IT. He worked best when he was desperately trying to impress Lucky. Itād be interested to see what was left on the cutting room floor with those two.
I guess it depends if the actors want to come back, if the team can do more with these characters in a sequel, or if they choose to refresh the cast with new characters who could prove to be as strong as Phoebe and Podcast.
Yeah, I canāt a sequel without at LEAST Phoebe coming back from the Summerville events. There are plenty of ways to get them to New York. The one Iām big on is have the Spenglers move to NYC on Winstonās bill (call it guilt over losing touch with Egon etc), Lucky is there to look at colleges and Podcast tags along becauseā¦ well, Podcast and his parents of questionable existence XD
What I DONāT want is a throw back to GB2. For a 4th installment in this timeline, we need something fresh and new. No rivers of slime, no Vigo, nothing like that. Iād love to see Oscar again, maybe as part of a new crew Winston is putting together. I also donāt want to see another world destroyer. Keep the threat BIG, but not another apocalypse.
I have several ideas for plots, but I donāt think this thread is the place to really discuss such things
Was Afterlife a success?
Afterlife failed to make more than the previous film
Afterlife failed to get better critical reviews than the previous film
It failed as a comedy
It failed at being scary
It failed at leaving any lasting impression positive or negative on the cultural zeitgeist. This was a movie that came out and was pretty quickly forgotten about. Granted thatās true of most movies & TV shows nowadays where things happen and then we move on rather quickly.
What did it succeed at?
Fans seems to like it. They didnāt over do the CGI and effects. It seems to have been a hit on home video. It opened to ok numbers considering the pandemic
So I guess it all depends on what you mean by āsuccessā. I donāt think it made its money back for Sony in theatres, but maybe the home video and ancillary stuff help push it.
Hereās the best way to judge if it was a success: Did you like it? It doesnāt matter how much money it made or any of that window dressing, what matters is if it entertained you and did what it was suppose to.
I am curious if at least one of Winstonās children will part of the new team.
Someone on another board mentioned before the release that itād be sad if after all this time only Egon had a family. I agree. I like to think Ray at least got married but I hope they give him at least 1 kid as well as Winston. Whether or not they join the business.
I donāt really care about Oscar becoming a GB. Itād be neat but Bill Murray never wanted to do this again. I know Oscar would have his own life by now but Peter never appearing with him (as a father, not a GB) would be really weird.
Does anyone think Bill would agree to play Peter even without suiting up? I donāt.
Iām betting it was one of Winstonās sons who prompted him to revive the Ghostbusters in order to put on the pack himself.
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But on a smaller budget and during a pandemic + as you state what it made on merch and home release. It couldāve made a decent profit for Sony.
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The critical reviews for both ATC and Afterlife were mired in the culture war of the last decade. I donāt get how the franchise became embroiled in it, but Sony should be realistic and aware of itās own role in exploiting toxicity in marketing both movies. Answer the Call and Afterlife are solid movies with a lot of quality invested in their production.
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Subjective. Was it perfect? No. It was funny, it was spooky, it was nostalgic, it was heartwarming. It scored an A- on Cinemascore.
Or daughter. Hopefully the new team is a good mix of legacies and brand new characters. Iām not so keen on Oscar being one of them, as I like to think that thanks to the Ghostbusters, he went on to live a normal, healthy life.
But back to thread, it did get nominated for several awards to that is a measure of success, imo. Hard to see overall since we still donāt really have total box office numbers though it should be at least $200 million.
Iām not sure the pandemic is a valid excuse considering the performance of other movies. At first I was in the camp of āya it did pretty well considering the pandemicā but then you look at the movies that did better and thereās no reason Ghostbusters couldnāt have done more business. I meanā¦Spider-Man made in a day, a single day, what the entire gross of Ghostbusters was. So the pandemic wasnāt a factor there. Venom did well. James Bond did ok, Dune did well considering it was also available on HBO Max. And before anyone goes āwell itās Spider-Man of course it did insane numbersā that isnāt the point.
People went to the moviesā¦for movies they really wanted to see. Also I canāt help but notice that GBA made almost exactly the same amount as GB16 domestically. Thatās a pretty big coincidence. Or itās not a coincidence. Iām leaning towards the latter.
And yes the budget was smaller than GB16. It got an A- cinemascore. Great. Wonderful. The problem is tho that the franchise isnāt growing. Sonyās looking at that 197 million dollar gross and the GB16 gross and thinking āGiven the cost of movie making today, with the spectacle required to gain an audiences attention, how do we make money?ā. They made one Ghostbusters movie on the cheap and they still barely made money. A sequel is only going to cost more. Look at this from Sonyās perspective and ask yourself ādid this movie move the needle so that we can say with any degree of confidence that the next GB films we make will be a successā and I think that answer is a clear no. I think anyone who says different is lying to themselves.
Studios donāt want to break even. They donāt want to have to rely on home video and merch to make a profit. Those are suppose to be the freebies that make you the extra cash, not limp you across the finish line for a participation trophy.
Was Ghostbusters Afterlife a success? No. Was it a failure? Also no. It justā¦was. The movie seems almost forgotten now by the masses. Itās not talked about, not debated about. Not anymore. It left no indelible mark on the zeitgeist. Mini pufts didnāt become the next baby Yoda or Porg.
GBA is like Tuesday night sex. You had it, you kinda enjoyed it, it got the job done. But it wasnāt particularly memorable and youāve forgotten all about it once the sweet ā ā ā ā ā fun weekend sex rolls around.
Spider-Man had the reasonable guarantee of the Marvel crowd going out to see it, as well as being very highly-anticipated thanks to the poorest-kept secret in Hollywood of the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, along with the not-secret return of Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe.
Understandably there was a lot working in its favour to get butts in seats for No Way Home.
Ghostbusters meanwhile has itsā loyal fanbase, but as weāve already established, itās substantially smallerā¦ And then there was a notable portion of it that was firmly adamant it wasnāt going to see it in the cinema, demanding that it go on streaming insteadā¦ A portion I canāt say Iāve seen represented in any of the other major fandoms.
Further to that, something which can be blamed 100% on the pandemic was the multiple changes to the release date, with the film having to be rescheduled so often, itās understandable some of the public mayāve lost interest in it - again, some of those vocal fans vented their spleens to say they wouldnāt go see it because itād been postponed so much.
Beyond that, I guess the average cinemagoer mayāve been less willing to take a risk on going out to see Afterlife versus No Way Home. Maybe the fact that No Way Home was likely to be fun, while Afterlife had the shadow of Haroldās passing over it led to some possible viewers to think it might not be as fun to watch as the first two movies?
People want to see movies, but I think a lot of them are more selective about it because of the pandemic, weighing the risk of whether the potential of exposure to someone carrying Covid is a price worth paying to see X movie.
[quote=RichardLess post_id=4968537 time=1648992883 user_id=47215]The movie seems almost forgotten now by the masses. Itās not talked about, not debated about. Not anymore. It left no indelible mark on the zeitgeist. Mini pufts didnāt become the next baby Yoda or Porg.
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And thatās at least partly Sonyās fault. Apart from more merchandise, the HasLab Pack, and the new game (which was announced back in 2021 and not explicitly the result of Afterlife), what exactly has Sony really done to keep the torch lit? weāve currently seen no announcement of a sequel, the IDW comic series remains in limbo, meaning thereās less to promote at the big comic conventions.
Sony wants a legacy franchise but is again not willing to put the time or money in to get one, and given the poor reviews that are being left for Morbius, they need to start paying attention to the few franchises they have that are doing moderately well.
And thatās at least partly Sonyās fault. Apart from more merchandise, the HasLab Pack, and the new game (which was announced back in 2021 and not explicitly the result of Afterlife), what exactly has Sony really done to keep the torch lit? weāve currently seen no announcement of a sequel, the IDW comic series remains in limbo, meaning thereās less to promote at the big comic conventions.
Sony wants a legacy franchise but is again not willing to put the time or money in to get one, and given the poor reviews that are being left for Morbius, they need to start paying attention to the few franchises they have that are doing moderately well.
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You are 100% right about Sony not giving this franchise the tender love and care itās due. Look at what Paramount is doing with Star Trek right now. You may not like the results but they are investing MILLIONS upon MiLlions. They realized their Trek movies canāt compete and werenāt making enough so what did they do? They bit the bullet and launched numerous shows and are growing the brand. They even have a new directors edition of Star Trek TMP getting remastered with new FX & scenes(after they didnāt future proof the previous version). They are investing in their biggest IP. Sony couldnāt even manage to do Spider-Man right without having to go to Marvel and say āhelp us please. Show us the wayā
Or look what Paramount did with TNG on blu ray. Hundreds of episodes had to have the post production entirely redone and visual effects recomposited. As for DS9 and Voyager word on the street is they are currently remastering those for blu ray /HD streaming which is an insanely difficult process(the low down is to make those shows work for the money they had in the 1990s all the FX and post production work was completed on video instead of film and video has a terrible native resolution and so those shows canāt be upgraded to HD quality without massive investments. What makes things worse is halfway through the series they switched from models to CGI and the CGI was rendered at video resolution. And most of those FX companies have gone out of business so re rendering the FX is going to be difficult or impossible).
Meanwhile Sony is likeā¦ nah we wonāt release Extreme Ghostbusters on home video. At all. And yeah, we will just let Time Life handle Real Ghostbusters. Time life. Then later weāll put out some RGB sets and then just stop. Or we will put all the EGB and RGB episodes up on YouTube for freeā¦and then take most of them down later. We will squeeze our loyal fans for every penny by releasing GB 1 & 2 on DVD, blu and 4K multiple times, each time with new special features to keep āem coming back for more.
Sony is the worst at brand management. The worst. How is there no new Ghostbusters animated series since(checks calendar) 1997! Thatās how you grow the brand. Look at what Clone Wars did for the Star Wars prequels. No new animated series since 1997! 25 years ladies and gents, 25 years. And even then it was 1 season of 40 episodes aired on some ā ā ā ā ā ā syndicated package at 6am in the morning.
When more adults are buying your toys than kidsā¦youāve messed up,