Ghostbusters: Afterlife was a sequel itself. In 1984, aided and abetted by Ray Parker Junior’s epic theme tune, Ghostbusters propelled itself to cult movie status. There certainly was something going on in the neighborhood as the supernatural comedy took the world and the box office by storm. If you hadn’t heard of the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man before, you knew all about him after. In giant form, he threatened the very existence of the world. The film also made ectoplasm an everyday word rather than a biological term.
Ghostbusters II followed in 1989, but it was largely regarded as a flop despite being the eighth highest-grossing film of the year. In 2016, Ghostbusters; Answer the Call was an attempt to reboot the franchise but, again, it failed to reignite the original magic.
A successful follow-up finally hit movie cinemas in 2021 with Ghostbusters: Afterlife. It became a massive hit for Sony wowing fans and critics alike. It brought in a healthy $204 million worldwide, so it was no surprise to hear that the Ecto-Containment Unit is being kept open for more films and projects in the franchise.
Ghostbusters has been more than just a cinematic success story over the years. Every form of merchandise has been created, and most of that gets an annual outing around the world on Halloween. There have been numerous video games across the years, with the critically acclaimed Ghostbusters: The Video Game being remastered in 2019 and an upcoming Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed game planned for release at the end of 2022. There are also several slot games as part of the franchise, which can be played at the best new online casinos such as Stardust.
Afterlife is a sequel to original films but does not follow the initial characters. In the early films, Bill Murray played Peter Venkman. Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore. Dan Akroyd was cast as Ray Stanz, and the late Harold Ramis played Egon Spengler. Murray’s reluctance to commit to a third film was felt to have derailed the franchise. The 2016 film did not answer the call after all. The success of Afterlife is because it focuses on a whole new generation of busters.
Afterlife saw Pheobe (McKenna Grace), Podcast (Logan Kim), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), and Lucky (Celeste O’Conner) pick up the proton packs and pull on the flight suits. There is most definitely something strange in the neighborhood. This film moved away from the familiar surroundings of New York to an Oklahoma backwater called Summerville.
June 8th is Ghostbusters Day for all the diehard fans out there. The date that the original film was released. On Ghostbusters Day this year, Jason Reitman broke cover and said that the team was working on a new live-action title. A sequel to Afterlife with the code name Firehouse. That would suggest that the action will switch back to New York. Firehouse is the Ghostbusters New York headquarters.
The official Ghostbusters Twitter account, on June 9th, sent out the following tweet
“The last time we saw Ecto-1, it was driving back into Manhattan: the home of Ghostbusters. That’s where our story begins. The code name is FIREHOUSE.”
The account tweeted out later that the team was heading back to the office to do some writing.
So that’s the action picture, but there’s more afoot than that. On the same day, the team took to Twitter again to announce that they were teaming up with Netflix and Sony to produce an animated TV series. In addition, there was an announcement of a Dark Horses comic book in production that will be released next year. So that’s at least three new projects in the pipeline.
If that was not enough excitement, there will be a VR version of a new Ghostbusters game for the PlayStation VR2. Players will be able to run their own ghost-busting business in the districts of San Fransisco. Sony Picture VR has said it is not a direct follow-up to any of the movies and will be set somewhere in the future. There is currently no release date for the game or the VR2.
