Though we still have a lot to learn about the plot of the newly announced Ghostbusters 3, you wouldn’t think it’d be the most outrageous of fan theories to suggest that the story will somehow involve ghosts, but it seems that even this assumption just might be jumping the gun.
To elaborate, Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters threequel comes to us in a very different time from the 1984 and 1989 films that his father Ivan Reitman directed, and among the factors that Hollywood needs to take into consideration these days is the all-important China market. As may know, many a major release in the past has undergone tweaks and made compromises in order to secure distribution in the region, and one thing that the Chinese censors are known to be sensitive about is ghosts.
With this in mind, perhaps it should be less surprising than it is that KC Walsh from Geeks WorldWide has reported inside intel that the studio is considering the possibility of avoiding calling the entities in Ghostbusters 3 “ghosts,” and may instead refer to them as “monsters.”
Though nothing on the matter has been confirmed yet, Walsh isn’t wrong when he acknowledges that “this may piss off some folks,” but as self-contradictory as the idea of a Ghostbusters movie that doesn’t use the word “ghosts” may sound, it’s not exactly a make or break factor. Saying “ghosts” instead of “monsters” is never going to be what saves an otherwise bad film, and if Reitman can deliver a fun, well-made spooker, then does it really matter what the movie’s otherworldly beings are called?
What’s more significant, however, are the recent reports that Ghostbusters 3 will see the torch pass to a new generation of surprisingly young busters, with the film said to focus on four kids in the teen/preteen age range. The idea looks to have yielded a bit of a mixed response so far, but we’ll find out if the new approach pays off when the film hits theaters in summer 2020.