CinemaNerdz

The Preview Reel: Don’t Be ‘Fraid of No Ghost

Scott Davis
The Preview Reel

Welcome to another “Preview Reel” column, where we look at the week’s upcoming wide release movies. This week sees one of the most controversial releases of the year, Ghostbusters. There’s been a lot of online chatter about this movie, unfortunately most of it has been negative. Is all of the negativity deserving? Let’s break it down and see.

 

Ghostbusters

What we are excited about:
Paul Feig has been one of the better comedy directors of the past decade. With hits like Bridesmaids (2011), The Heat (2013), and Spy (2015) under his belt, Feig has also developed strong chemistry with Melissa McCarthy, who is one of the stars in this reboot. The common thread among Feig’s recent comedy blockbusters is that he is able to take stereotypical and cliché concepts and make them feel fresh. He has conquered the wedding, buddy-cop, and spy genres, let’s see if he can do the same with the supernatural genre.

What we are worried about:
To put it kindly, the trailers have been bad. Like garbage bad. It has nothing to do with rebooting a classic film or that it features an all-female led cast, but because almost nothing in the trailers has been funny. Almost all of the jokes land with a dud and the movie just does not feel fresh. The film has received plenty of negative backlash for the poor trailers, which has turned into a backlash of fans saying why do we need this reboot anyway, which is never a good thing. If we were just to base it off the trailers, we would be very worried, but hopefully this is an example of a marketing failure (i.e. The Edge of Tomorrow) rather than the film itself being a failure.

The Buzz:
This film has had so much negative buzz that it’s hard to actually believe that it’s actually tracking decently. The film should earn around $40-$50 million, which might not be the blockbuster people thought it would be when it was announced, but after it earned the title of being the most hated trailer in YouTube history, I think Sony should consider that a win. The film has also been earning mostly positive reviews, with most critics agreeing that it’s entertaining and funny throughout. Despite the positive reviews, it’s hard to see this movie topping last week’s breakout hit, The Secret Life of Pets, at the box office this weekend.

Final thoughts:
There’s a lot of negative buzz around this year’s Ghostbusters, and while it might be warranted, early reactions indicate that it’s an entertaining summer comedy. That’s a huge step up from what the trailers made it look like, and although it probably won’t match the classic’s status, this Ghostbusters might actually be worth checking out in theaters.

Scott Davis

Scott Davis is a recent graduate of Oakland University where he earned a degree in journalism. He worked for the student newspaper on campus, The Oakland Post, where he became the paper's managing editor. He also earned a minor in Cinema Studies at OU. Scott enjoys all things film and TV related, especially the blockbuster kind. He might be the biggest Christopher Nolan fan you know.
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