In news that scarcely would have seemed believable this time a couple of months ago, Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot has a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than Jason Reitman’s Afterlife, the latter of which finally gave the fans who blasted the female-driven supernatural comedy for daring to exist exactly what they’d been craving for over 30 years.
While some brave folks even went public in their belief that Feig’s version was superior to the recently-released legacy sequel, there aren’t too many who would agree. While there was nothing in 2016’s Ghostbusters that actively warranted the intense vitriol being spouted in its direction, the positioning of the film was a mistake.
It was a Ghostbusters movie without a doubt, one that ultimately adopted the Answer the Call suffix after it was released, but it existed in a strange place canonically. There were references to the first two installments, but any returning stars were playing completely different characters, so it was all a little strange.
Speaking to Yahoo! Movies, Ernie Hudson shared his thoughts on the matter, and said things might have worked out better had Feig’s Ghostbusters been more of a spinoff and less of a reboot.
“I’m a big fan of Paul [Feig] and the four women, they’re all very funny people — but I felt they put themselves in a bind because they didn’t make it part of the Ghostbusters universe. I think Paul wanted to do his thing and the fans saw Ghostbusters in a very specific way. I think Jason [Reitman] took that into account in the new movie. It would’ve been easier if they hadn’t done a reboot.”
The man’s got a point, but Ghostbusters V2.0 has already been consigned to the history books, with Afterlife now set to reinvigorate the franchise by continuing to lean into fan service and nostalgia.
