10 Overly-Optimistic Attempts To Launch A Movie Franchise

2. Ghostbusters

Power Rangers
Sony

Ivan Reitman and Dan Akroyd were so confident that the Ghostbusters franchise was about to return with a bang that they established a subsidiary company named Ghost Corps to oversee development of the numerous sequels, spinoffs, TV shows, animated features and merchandising tie-ins that Paul Feig's reboot would no doubt bring. Oops. Ghost Corps may have had to let some people go.

Never in recent memory has so much pre-release controversy been stirred up over such a painfully mediocre film. The main cast are fine but are saddled with weak material, the villain is absolutely terrible, the cameos from the original cast are painful and Feig struggles to wring any decent ideas or set-pieces from the $144 million budget.

While it did manage to earn $229 million at the box office, Ghostbusters is still estimated to have lost the studio $75 million and nixed not just the franchise, but an entire cinematic universe at the first hurdle. With just one animated series in the pipeline, Ghost Corps better have some good ideas up its sleeve.

Contributor

I don't do social media, so like or follow me in person but please maintain a safe distance or the authorities will be notified. Don't snap me though, I'll probably break. I was once labelled a misogynist on this very site in a twenty paragraph-long rant for daring to speak ill of the Twilight franchise. I stand by what I said, it's crap.