Ghostbusters: Afterlife Trailer Review - 7 Ups & 4 Downs

2. Absence Makes The Heart Grow Stronger

Imagine the temptation there must have been to bring Bill Murray or Dan Aykroyd or Ernie Hudson in to this trailer as a means to really sell it to those Ghostbusters fans who felt alienated or annoyed by the reboot. You just know that conversation happened at a studio level.

And yet, the teaser's only direct acknowledgement of the original Ghostbusters team is a grainy clip of them from the 1980s - an artefact of a forgotten era that Paul Rudd's Mr Grooberson has seemingly preserved as part of his lovingly cultivated collection.

It's a bold strategy not to include them any more than that, because it puts the impetus on the audience's imaginations to fill in the gaps. Plus, the level of hinting that the veterans are going to be involved in some way as part of the secret of the family's past is almost enough to hype them without them NEEDING to appear.

It's also a smart move in terms of avoiding the backlash from fans of Paul Feig's version. There's already a minefield attached to the idea that the REAL Ghostbusters are the male ones, so using the trailer to "right that wrong" would have been a bad look. And it would have kicked up a hornet's nest.