I ain’t afraid of no…poster? Well, nobody will be, since this one is relatively tame. What am I talking about? Why, only the Ghostbusters: Afterlife one-sheet that dropped today. It’s subtle, sparse and different than what people may have been expecting. But, unlike the light trap, why don’t you look directly at it in the gallery down below?
We’ve got the Ecto-1, the famous Ghostbusting vehicle that only cost the ‘busters $4,800, rip-roaring through a wheat field, which is quite the different environment than we’re used to, eh? In the background, the top-left of the frame, we can see some kind of disturbance in the sky as well, glowing eerie and green. It looks more like like GB’16 than GB’84 though. And, to cement this as Not Your Daddy’s (TM) Ghostbusters, the whole thing’s in a canted angle. Dang, this really is a whole new ghost busting venture, ain’t it?
Well, it’s partially new, as Afterlife is, for all intents and purposes, Ghostbusters 3. Numbered titled are just so passé, ya know? While the surviving cast members (sans blessedly-retired Rick Moranis) of the original are returning, we’re seemingly passing the proton packs down to Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace, and – this one makes me very happy – the immortal Paul Rudd.
Rudd topped my dream cast when the original remake was announced. Paul Fieg really messed that one up, eh? The main thing everybody got wrong about Ghostbusters 2016 though was blaming the cast; blame the writer/director who, you know, didn’t craft a movie. He relied on Wiig, McCarthy and Hemsworth to make his film for him, which, uh, no. You can’t improv something as subtle and dry as the original, which was, for the most part, heavily scripted since Dan Aykroyd is a crazy person.
I’m really sincerely hoping that Ghostbusters: Afterlife is more than just another cheap cash grab from Sony. I really hope. This poster though, well, it’s something. It’s a taste of the aesthetic we’re getting, I guess, but let’s hope Monday’s trailer is a bit more impressive.
