Ghostbusters 5 Needs To Break The Franchise's Weird Origin Trend
Ghostbusters 5 has been announced but in order to evolve the franchise, it must break its odd reliance on origin stories. Dan Aykroyd conceived of the original Ghostbusters concept, which was inspired by his own belief in the paranormal. His original idea was dubbed Ghost Smashers and saw the titular team functioning like firefighters who would battle supernatural threats across different dimensions. While the director Ivan Reitman and writer Harold Ramis saw the potential of the idea, they knew Aykroyd's take would be too sprawling and expensive, so Ramis came on to scale it down.
The result was Ghostbusters, a combination of comedy and blockbuster that became an immense success in 1984. While it was always intended as a one-off, the studio recognized they had a potential franchise on their hands. They followed up with cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters — which needs a reboot — and eventually reunited the cast for 1989's Ghostbusters II. The franchise has returned to the big screen twice since then, with 2016's Ghostbusters: Answer The Call and 2021's legacy sequel Afterlife.
Related: Ghostbusters 5 Confirmation Is A Relief: Afterlife Deserves A Sequel
Sony confirmed in April 2022 that Ghostbusters 5 was being developed, though story details or returning cast has yet to be confirmed. Of the four Ghostbusters live-action movies, it's notable that three of them are origin stories. Ramis believed that the best way to introduce audiences to the central concept was to watch the characters establish the business, which was an inspired touch. 2016's Answer The Call was something of a remake so it followed that same formula, while Ghostbusters: Afterlife then acted as an origin for Egon Spengler's family as they uncover his
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