7 Reasons Ghostbusters: Afterlife Won't Revive The Franchise
6. Ignoring Inferior Sequels And Reboots Doesn't Equal Success
There seems to be a trend lately of making sequels that completely ignore any less than successful ones that came before it. It is quite an arrogant approach, as it assumes that by dismissing other inferior sequels or reboots the 'rebooted sequel' is automatically better.
However, the outcome is often quite different.
Just take a look at Halloween from 2018, which recruited previously killed-off Jamie Lee Curtis, and erased all sequels to the 1978 classic. Or Terminator: Dark Fate, which picked up after Terminator 2: Judgement Day left off and promised fans the Terminator sequel they finally deserved.
Despite all of the pandering to nostalgia, Halloween 2018 turned out to be only OK and not exactly the classic fans had been clamouring for. And Terminator: Dark Fate has all but killed off the Terminator franchise after doing abysmal numbers at the box office.
In many ways both movies weren’t that much better than some of the sequels it had brushed aside, and it was all the more noticeable for it.
Therefore, is Ghostbusters: Afterlife setting itself up for colossal failure by similarly erasing the failed 2016 reboot? Is such a tactic placing too much pressure on Afterlife to be as good as the first movie?
Ultimately, if you are going to ignore sequels and reboots that previously tried to save the franchise but failed, people will at least expect your movie to be better than those. And with such an approach, an audience’s expectations are already raised, leaving more scope for disappointment.
Can we expect this sequel to also be ignored in a few years in favour of another sequel that believes it can do it better… again?