Do you know these spook-tacular facts about 1984's Ghostbusters?
Do you know these spook-tacular facts about 1984's Ghostbusters? Source link
Do you know these spook-tacular facts about 1984's Ghostbusters? Source link
There’s something comfortingly irrelevant about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. The fifth film in the Ghostbusters franchise came out last weekend to mediocre reviews and middling box-office numbers; it’s probably selling enough tickets to justify yet another entry, but the product itself is so perfunctory that it’s driving zero cultural discourse. Thank God. I still shiver at the memory of 2016, when Hollywood’s attempt to create a team of female ghostbusters ended up instigating a monthslong online firestorm. In fact, the outcry over Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot, which starred Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, was so loud that it seemingly frightened parent company Sony into backpedaling toward more familiar “legacy sequel” territory, where movies bring back old cast members and try to summon as much nostalgia as possible. Before 2016, I would not have predicted that Ivan Reitman’s hit ’80s comedy had enough of a devout following to treat such a fundamentally goofy film like it was the Magna Carta. But its cadre of aging mega-fans, combined with a coterie of bad-faith online rabble-rousers, turned a summer …
Ghostbusters is riding high once again in movie theaters and, only one line into this story, the theme tune is already running around your head. Sorry about that. Incoming free DLC for Ghostbusters: Spirit Unleashed brings the new movie, Frozen Empire with it. Fans will get to try their hand at taking down Garraka, master of the Death Chill and the newest villain to join Ghostbusters lore. Or maybe you want to play the baddies themselves and plunge the world into a new ice age. Either way, this DLC will let you live out experiences inspired by the new movie’s adventure. “We have been so focused on building an immersive world, one fans would recognize and appreciate,” said Jared Gerritzen, Chief Creative Officer at IllFonic. “Our goal now is to double down on the feel. As a long-time Ghostbusters fan, I want to feel immersed. Our drive for DLC year two: heighten the fun, heighten the experience.” IllFonic has planned four major DLC releases throughout 2024 and the game’s unique hide-and-seek take on gameplay with …
Ghost busting is still a good business. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire collected US$45.2 million in ticket sales over the weekend, according to studio estimates on Sunday (Mar 24), handing Sony Pictures the studio’s first No 1 film since last summer. The opening weekend for Frozen Empire, in 4,345 theatres, was nearly exactly the same as the US$44 million launch for Ghostbusters: Afterlife in 2021. Afterlife rebooted the franchise with a sequel built around the descendants (Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace) of Harold Ramis’ Egon Spengler, along with Paul Rudd’s seismologist Gary Grooberson. Neither film has been a hit with critics, but audiences have been more receptive. Frozen Empire garnered a B+ CinemaScore from moviegoers, a tick down from the A- score for Afterlife. Frozen Empire isn’t assured of profitability, but it will hope for sustained business over spring break. Ghostbusters films tend to make a low impact internationally. In 25 overseas markets, Frozen Empire added US$16.4 million. The film opens in Singapore on Apr 4. The latest Ghostbusters cost about US$100 million to make. After Jason Reitman …
Ghostbusters star Ernie Hudson is opening up about the beloved franchise, the female-led reboot and the inequitable treatment he received during the ’80s on the original films. Hudson has appeared in five Ghostbusters films, starting with 1984’s original, the 1989 sequel, 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which hit theaters on Friday. The actor also appeared in the female-led Ghostbusters reboot in 2016, albeit playing a different character. His role as Winston Zeddemore was first offered to Eddie Murphy before Hudson came on board. Reportedly, the role was reduced significantly before filming began (Winston doesn’t even show up until about halfway through the film). The character also wasn’t featured on the theatrical poster. But Hudson says it’s more complicated than chalking it up to racism alone. “You know, being a person of African descent anywhere in the world, we’re all just learning how to live together and get along together and realize that we’re all connected,” he said in an interview with U.K. newspaper The Independent. “And it’s very tempting, sometimes, to blame anything …
No one expected Ghostbusters to become the phenomenon it has over the past 40 years. In 1984, Columbia Pictures was just hoping the Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis-penned high-concept film could break even and, at the very least, turn a small profit, despite director Ivan Reitman’s prior success. No one expected it to become the blockbuster of the summer, or that it would go on to create a demand for more adventures with the unconventional scientists, Dr. Ray Stantz (Aykroyd), Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Dr. Egon Spengler (Ramis), and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson). Yet somehow, unlike most franchises, Ghostbusters managed to sustain itself after a negatively received sequel through its unique concept. Animated series, video games, comic books, merchandise and cosplay carried the brand into the 21st century, where Ghostbusters has been revitalized. Now comes the big-screen release of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the fifth film in the movie franchise. Although, like most things from the ’80s brought into the present, not without its share of controversy. It’s pretty amazing, looking back now, how one …
Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Ernie Hudson sits under a bright light, cameras pointed squarely at him. The Ghostbusters star shot to fame in 1984 as the fourth member of the iconic ghoul-fighting quartet, alongside Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis. Today, he’s seated for a round of interviews, to speak about the latest sequel – Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which sees his character, Winston Zeddemore, return as a philanthropist masterminding a new generation of paranormal pest-removers. “It’s been 40 years. Over half my life has been Ghostbusters on some level or other,” he tells me – but he’s got no problem with that. “I’ve been acting close to 60 years and there are some films I’ve made that I hope they never even think about making again.” Legs crossed in a kind of sanguine, confident recline, Hudson looks almost preposterously good for 78 – you’d swear he still had 50 years of petrol left …
Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard reprise their roles as a family and team of ghost catchers in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – this time in the location of the original films, New York City. The latest addition to the movie franchise sees the original and new generation team up to protect their home from a second Ice Age. Image: Souped up Cadillac – Ecto-1. Pic. Columbia Pictures Here are the key things you need to know about the fourth outing of everyone’s favourite 80s ghost hunters. Ecto-1 or Millennium Falcon? There wouldn’t be a Ghostbusters film without the iconic Ecto-1. In the first reboot, Afterlife, the car was found by Wolfhard’s character on the grounds of his late grandfather Elon Spengler’s farm. Image: (L-R) Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon. Pic: Columbia Pictures With the help of Spengler’s ghost, they repaired it and in Frozen Empire, it returns to the streets of New York. “I actually got to drive it, it was really unreal,” says Rudd, admitting it was a “tricky” vehicle to …
Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free In 2021, the frightfully cynical Ghostbusters: Afterlife reduced one the greatest comedies ever made to a solemn parade of nostalgic artefacts, with moody shots of the famous proton packs and decked-out hearse. It also committed a particularly egregious act of digital necromancy, forcing the CGI-assisted return of the late Harold Ramis as Egon Spengler. Thankfully, there’s a limited resource of reverential nostalgia to be squeezed out of the franchise. Afterlife’s sequel, Frozen Empire, has – potentially against its will – been forced to actually put the Ghostbusters to work. Granted, there are multiple, quite annoying cameos and nods to the original 1984 film in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Slimer, the trash-addicted ghoul, returns. There are more Baby Stay Puft Marshmallow Men who, much to the franchise’s dismay, did not successfully kill Baby Yoda in his sleep by toppling his domination of the cute film-mascot market. The film, without reason, opens with …
As far as the four-man ghost-hunting crew Paraletic Activities are concerned, ghosts have between the hours of 8pm and 11pm to make themselves known. “We’re getting too old for the paranormal all-nighters!” laughs Johnny Smith, 51, who by daylight hours is a commercial signwriter. At weekends he joins Neil, Luke and Nigel, three fellow 30- to 50-something Walsall Ghostbusters fans who have carried their childhood passion for the paranormal into middle age to form Paraletic Activities. They meet to drink real ale and explore the many reputedly haunted locations that litter the Midlands, from the ruins of Grace Dieu Priory in Leicestershire to spooky pubs such as The Four Crosses in Cannock. The crew’s technology, honed over a decade in the ghost-hunting game, includes “Old Faithful”, a meter that measures fluctuations in the electromagnetic field, and “Carol Anne”, a 1970s portable television set that the team believes registers localised static interference. Carol Anne takes her name from the suburban child who became a conduit and target for supernatural entities in the 1980s Poltergeist trilogy. We …