7 Reasons Ghostbusters: Afterlife Won't Revive The Franchise
4. The Tone
Whilst the original Ghostbusters was considered a 'family' movie of sorts, the tone was dark and brooding, with much of the humour aimed at an older audience. Afterlife looks to be employing a much lighter, more traditional family-movie tone.
In many ways, the fact that the movie will be more family-friendly is counter to the argument that it won’t save the franchise. Surely a wider audience means more ticket sales?
However, many other similar attempts to water down franchises or cult classics in order to pander to kids have fallen on their face. Just look at the remake of Robocop, or Total Recall or yes, even the 2016 Ghostbusters; all haven fallen foul with audiences, particularly with fans of the originals.
Fans want from a sequel or a reboot that which made the first film so great. These are the people that keep a franchise going, and talk about the films for years following their release. They don’t want to feel like they’ve been given a diluted version.
A revisit to the original Ghostbusters and you’ll quickly realise just how dark, and at times scary it was compared to what Afterlife looks set to be. That could be a bad sign for how this movie will be received by those die-hard fans that have kept Ghostbusters in popular-culture consciousness for so long.