Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is the mostly fine fifth entry in the long running franchise, that is slowly but surely running out of commercial steam.
That movie was a perfectly fine way of reigniting a frozen franchise, after the blowout success of the first two movies, from 1984 and 1989, and the false re-start that was Answer The Call (2016). Even though that movie was pretty enjoyable, it showed that the hardcore fans were not ready for an all female Ghostbusters quartet and the studio subsequently caved.
The more readily embraced Afterlife was basically ‘Ghostbusters meets a more lighthearted version of Stranger Things’, with Mckenna Grace (as Phoebe Spengler) in the Millie Bobby Brown role and Finn Wolfhard (as Phoebe’s older brother Trevor) as ‘that guy you already know from Stranger Things’.
The always great Carrie Coon (as Callie Spengler) was great once again in the mother role, while Paul Rudd (as Gary Grooberson) also excelled as a maths teacher and a possible romantic interest (for Callie), and there were other new names like Podcast (Logan Kim) and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) as friends for respectively Phoebe and Trevor.
To add to this, there were special appearances by original ghostbusters Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson), to bridge the generational gap between past and present. Which was fitting enough, since the movie was basically about Callie, Phoebe and Trevor finding out their connection to the original Ghostbusters and the secret legacy left behind by their dear departed grandfather Egon, who was played by the late Harold Ramis in the original movies.
In Frozen Empire - dedicated to original director Ivan Reitman, who also left us since the last movie - this whole lot of cast is back. Plus some brand new faces (like Kumail Nanjiani in a plum role) and some returning ones from earlier franchise entries, like William
Atherton as Mayor Walter Peck. It’s a bit much, to say the least, and coupled with some sub plots that don’t really go anywhere - hopefully there will be an extended cut someday to do them justice - director Kenan has trouble giving each actor enough screen time - if he can get them into the frame at all.
Still, I enjoyed most of the movie much more than I expected to, maybe because my expectations were sufficiently lowered due to the mostly poor reviews by critics who seemed notably more tired of the franchise than me.
So according to the Offical Synopsis, The Spengler family returns to where it all started – the iconic New York City firehouse – to team up with the original Ghostbusters, who’ve developed a top-secret research lab to take busting ghosts to the next level. But when the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second Ice Age.
This is basically all you need to know, and while the story most definitely has an episode of the week feel to it, I just really liked the way it kept going from scene to scene, keeping me engrossed throughout and just wondering how it would all play out. Overcrowded though it may be, I liked the characters and I liked the pacing of the movie, so the editing also did something right. I also liked the practical effects and there’s quite a lot of them, so that’s another plus.
I also liked the comic timing, even if it felt ‘sitcomic’ at times. I also thought most of the dialogue was funny, and I liked the way Phoebe fell in love with a ghost, Melody, who was looking for a way to follow her family into the afterlife, even if that involves making some morally dubious decisions.
It’s a pity that so far Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is not as big a hit as it needs to be. Budgeted at 100 million dollars plus marketing costs, it may crawl to a worldwide gross of 200 million dollars - with half of that money going to theaters - and make up the rest through Video on Demand revenue, Sony’s streaming deal with Netflix and a boost in Ghostbusters merchandise sales.
Still, the question will remain whether or not it’s time to send the franchise to its own afterlife. If you take a cold hard look at the numbers it’s clear that only the first two movies (yes, those from the 1980’s!) made a real profit. The equivalent of the 282 million (on a 30 million dollar budget) the first one made back in 1984 would be a staggering 854 million now, exactly 40 years later. And the 212 million the second one made in 1989 would still mean 540 million in today’s world.
Suffice to say that none of the last three movies made anywhere near that kind of money. They all made around 200 (or a little more) million worldwide, but as I explained 200 million today means a lot less than 200 million four decades ago. Answer The Call (229 million but on a ridiculous 144 million budget) was too expensive and lost money, Afterlife (200 million on a 75 million budget) broke just about even on theatrical and only made money after that, and as I said, Frozen Empire is still very much struggling in theaters.
As a European I have to take at least some of the blame, as the Ghostbusters franchise has always been most popular in America and far less so in the rest of the world. The original Ghostbusters was a big hit in the Netherlands when I was young, but after the somewhat less popular follow up the movies just faded from view, while the new movies are just part of the endless chain of Hollywood blockbusters.
Still, in this day and age franchises in general are considered to be ‘shareholder friendly’ - shareholders may not care about the movies but they will be familiar with the brand - so that’s why studios keep making them, even to the point of ever diminishing returns. So don’t be too surprised if there’s another Ghostbusters movie coming to you, somewhere between 2027 and 2030.
And as nobody in Hollywood knows anything, the sixth time may once again be the charm…
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