Sony has released a trailer for 2020’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Many Ghostbusters fans probably (and fairly) assumed the paranormal horror-comedy franchise was dead in the water after Paul Feig’s movie reboot failed to cover its budget in 2016. Then, at the start of this year, Sony unexpectedly announced a third film based in the original 1984 Ghostbusters universe is moving forward for a summer 2020 release. The long-awaited Ghostbusters 3 is being directed by Oscar-nominee Jason Reitman (Juno, Tully), who’s also the son of Ghostbusters 1&2 helmer Ivan Reitman.
Based on a script by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan (Monster House, City of Ember), Afterlife brings back the original Ghostbusters’ main cast (sans the late Harold Ramis, who passed away in 2014) to pass the torch to a younger generation of heroes. Among the fresh additions to the franchise here are Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Mckenna Grace (Annabelle Comes Home), along with Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd in leading roles. Fans got a sneak preview of the actors’ new characters last Friday, when the first-look images from Afterlife dropped ahead of today’s trailer launch.
The trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife is now online and will begin screening in theaters alongside Jumanji: The Next Level later this week. You can check it out in the space below.
The trailer suggests Ghostbusters: Afterlife is very much a legacy sequel in the vein of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in the sense that it focuses on a new generation of heroes learning about the franchise’s original protagonists. In this case, those young leads are siblings Trevor (Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Grace), who move with their mom (Coon) to a small Oklahoma town where they uncover some paranormal activity. Both the trailer and Afterlife synopsis confirm the kids’ connection to the Ghostbusters and the “secret legacy” their grandfather left behind, including an old farmhouse and barn full of ghost-bustin’ equipment like the Ecto-1. The trailer further hints Trevor and Phoebe are, in fact, Egon’s (Ramis) grandchildren as some fans have theorized by showing Phoebe stumble upon the original Ghostbusters’ uniforms - specifically, one labeled “Spengler”.
With its emphasis on legacy and the past (right down to Rudd’s character, Trevor and Phoebe’s summer teacher, showing them news footage of the 1984 Ghostbusters’ ending), the Afterlife marketing is already banking heavily on audiences’ nostalgia for this franchise to sell the latest installment. The approach makes sense, though, as Feig’s reboot arguably struggled financially because of its lack of connection to the previous entries in the property. Of course, there’s a risk this strategy will blow-up in the movie’s face, especially since people’s collective nostalgia for the ’80s seems to have faded recently, as evidenced by ’80s film sequels Terminator: Dark Fate and Doctor Sleep disappointing commercially last month. Hopefully, then, Afterlife will have more to offer than just warm feelings for Ivan Reitman’s original comedy classic.
Source: Sony
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife Release Date: 2021-11-19
