Why Ghostbusters Spooked Audiences

The “Ghostbusters” reboot looks to earn just under $50 million in its opening weekend — a modest take, but less than what most studio executives were hoping. The film seemed destined to disappoint at the box office, but not for the reasons commonly cited. This wasn’t about hating a movie reboot because men were replaced by women.

So why exactly did the film underwhelm?

An Inviolable Era
1984 was not just any year. It was an extraordinary year at the movies. The original “Ghostbusters” is a major cultural touchstone — not only because it is a terrific movie, but because it belongs to a group of films that define the era for that generation.

The year 1984 saw the release of “Footloose,” “This is Spinal Tap,” “Splash,” “Police Academy,” “Romancing the Stone,” “Sixteen Candles,” “Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom,” “Star Trek III,” “Gremlins,” “Karate Kid,” “Purple Rain,” “Red Dawn,” “Stop Making Sense,” “The Terminator,” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”

These movies spoke to us. Messing with our memories, and therefore with group cultural experiences that we carry in our collective psyche, is a questionable idea at best. For those who were in the theater when “Ghostbusters” came to town, who doesn’t recall the roars of laughter and the group experience of joy? It cannot be recreated, or rebooted.

Related: ‘Ghostbusters’: Stinker or Sleeper?

Indeed, the only reason the “Star Trek” reboot worked was because J.J. Abrams is a real visionary, and because the franchise had already been endlessly reinvented. Abrams also stayed true to the original while giving it an original voice.

Thus, before “Ghostbusters” even had a chance to open, a generation of moviegoers was reluctant to give it a try.

Two Strikes Against It
Conceptually, having women as the leads is a fine idea, but only as a starting point. The film doesn’t really build on it, and that created a marketing problem. The message being sent to lovers of the original film was that this was a cynical undertaking concocted by some genius sitting in an office.  One can hear the studio executive saying, “I know! Let’s make them chicks!” Thus, older moviegoers had a second reason to avoid seeing the film.

Even worse, the studio made critical errors in attracting newcomers to the franchise.

More imagination from the hugely talented creative team behind this film would have been great.

One reason for the success of the original film is that it took audiences to a place we hadn’t seen before — a common factor of the most successful films. We’d seen comedies. We’d seen special effects movies. We had not seen the genres combined. In the original trailer, the messaging is pretty simple: Ghosts are real. They are mean. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis are three schmoes who are the only thing standing in the way of the end of the world.

The reboot is problematic because it fails to take us anywhere new. Substituting women for men doesn’t count. We’ve been to New York. We’ve seen ghosts take over the city. We’ve seen Kristen Wiig and the other comediennes do their schtick. They aren’t playing characters. They are playing themselves dressed up as Ghostbusters.

Time, Place, and Messages
Moreover, 1984 New York was a very identifiable and specific place. The scene in the mayor’s office, where the Ghostbusters make their case to save the city, offers a verisimilitude that the new film can never match — because New York itself is now just one big shopping mall.

Instead, wouldn’t it have been a stroke of genius to set the new film in the corrupt city of Chicago, or in Washington, D.C.?

Thus, the messages being delivered — unconsciously and unintentionally — to audiences fail to give them reasons why they must see this film. The film’s trailers do more than sell the film. They sell the culture of the film, and that culture is not showing us anything unusual, unexpected, or new.

“Ghostbusters” is not a failure, though. It will do OK at the box office, but not great. The movie itself is mediocre, but there are a few good scenes (and wouldn’t you know it — in a chick flick, the male eye candy, Chris Hemsworth, pretty much steals every scene he’s in). What would be great would have been more imagination from the hugely talented creative team behind it. Paul Feig is hilarious. Kristen Wiig is wonderful. Kate McKinnon is a revelation. Let’s give them a project more deserving of their talents.