Whatever your thoughts about the movie itself, you have to feel bad for the team behind 2016’s Ghostbusters reboot. Sony must have thought they had a winner with their idea to do a timely all-female relaunch of the beloved 80s comedy franchise, but unfortunately, the movie was beset with bad publicity from the off. When you combine that with underwhelming reviews, it’s no surprise the film underperformed at the box office, sucking all hope for a sequel into a ghost trap.
Two years on from the release of the movie, director Paul Feig has spoken a little about where he hoped to take Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones in a Ghostbusters sequel. The filmmaker revealed that he wanted the team to go international and face other exotic ghosts from overseas. Apparently, the idea came to him while he was on the press tour to promote the first movie back in 2016.
Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, he said the following:
“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 that we could have done.”
Of course, Feig’s potential sequel isn’t the only Ghostbusters project that’s failed to materialize. Sony had big plans for the franchise not so long ago, setting up the GhostCorps division to turn it into a multimedia brand. Another live-action movie starring Channing Tatum was planned as was an animated series titled Ghostbusters: Ecto Force. However, neither have made any progress since the failure of the reboot.
For his part, Feig’s still very keen to return to the franchise. Back in April, the director made clear that he’s up for a sequel, as he’s “so proud” of the first film, arguing that the 2016 effort has built up a strong cult following since its release, particularly with a female audience. The Ghostbusters franchise is surely too popular to stay dead, so maybe Feig will get his wish at some point? We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.