Sony has been having a lot of success with its cinema movies lately with the likes of Spider-Man: No Coming Home, Unexploredand Morbius being the highlights. However, one of their most underrated gems that came out last year was Ghostbusters: Afterlife. This film made nearly $200 million at the worldwide box office, and at CinemaCon last month, Sony confirmed that ghostbusters 5 was under construction. Now, in an exclusive interview with Deadline, the president of Sony Tom Rothman confirmed that more ghost hunters films are also in preparation.
The answer was a simple “yes” when Deadline asked specifically if there would be more ghost huntersbut here is the exact quote from Rothman:
Yes we will. We have a lot of franchise universes to operate with, but since I have Deadline here, I mean, and please include this, okay? Everyone will say, yes you made $3 billion but that’s just sequels and superheroes. It wasn’t all that. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and Little Women. This summer we have Bullet Train, by David Leitch, starring Brad Pitt, a pure original action movie, rock’em, sock’em, for adults. And Where the Crawdads Sing, a major bestseller with rising actress Daisy Edgar Jones, for women. I absolutely believe that Women will return to the box office.
Although that could mean anything in terms of the stories they could tell in the ghost hunters universe, it’s just nice to hear that Sony appreciates ghost hunters as much as they do a franchise like Spider Man. Especially after Ghostbusters: Afterlife who brought a nice breath of spooky fresh air to the franchise. How he honored both the late Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman was just wonderfully sincere. The movie also stood on its own as a fun coming-of-age story with endearing characters that brought back the franchise’s most horror-centric elements. It’s something that hasn’t really been seen since the first ghost hunters in 1984.
We still don’t know what the fifth film will be about or who it will follow, but it’s a safe bet it will see the Ghostbusters return to New York as they rebuild their brand as teased in one of Life after death‘s post-credit scenes. Hopefully that means the original Ghostbusters will team up with Egon’s granddaughter, Phoebe, played by the amazing Mckenna Gracewho stole the show in the last film.
It will be exciting to see what the new Ghostbusters movies look like after this upcoming fifth entry. This may be the start of the Ghostbusters with multiple teams outside of New York. In comic terms, it could be like the West Coast Avengers or Titans East for the ghost hunters franchise. It’s all speculation at this point, but there’s a lot of potential for in-universe lore to be explored further in these upcoming projects. In the four films so far, the surface of the spiritual world of ghost hunters was only scratched.
Until we learn more specific information about the future of the ghost hunters franchise, you can read Rothman’s full interview on Deadline. You can also broadcast Ghostbusters: Afterlife on STARZ right now.
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