Sony execs could only read Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife script while alone in a secure room
Reitman wanted no one to know he was following in his father's footsteps
Aux News Sony
Jason Reitman, the Oscar-nominated director behind indie darlings such as Juno and Up In The Air, never thought he’d helm the next Ghostbusters film. Not because he’d never have the opportunity, but because he refused to follow in his father’s hit-making footsteps.
Born in 1977, Jason was only 7 years old when his father, Ivan Reitman, directed the O.G. Ghostbusters. Since then, it’s been an ever-present part of his life. “I don’t go a day in my life without seeing someone wearing a Ghostbusters T-shirt,” he said in an interview with Insider.
For nearly just as long, Jason has said he would never direct a Ghostbusters film. So when the younger Reitman felt compelled to follow his dad’s dreams, Jason kept the news under the tightest of wraps.
“I think only three people at Sony knew of its existence,” Reitman says. “Each executive had to come by themselves to Ghost Corps and read the script in a room and then leave.”
“I really didn’t want it out there that we were writing this movie,” he continues. “Particularly after years of me saying I didn’t want to make a Ghostbusters movie.”
In the same year Paul Feig’s woman-led Ghostbusters hit theaters, Reitman received the green light from Sony to push forth with his own take on the franchise. With his father at his side for much of the project as a producer, Ghostbusters became a family affair.
“Every filmmaker is doing autobiographical work no matter what they are doing,” Jason says. “I made this movie for my dad. I made this movie for my daughter. I think it mirrors the ways that we want to be connected to each other.”
Ghostbusters: Afterlife arrives in theaters on November 19, and stars Finn Wolfhard, McKenna Grace, Carrie Coon, and Paul Rudd, with appearances from the original Ghostbusters Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Dan Aykroyd.
45 Comments
He probably should have had Diablo Cody write the script because the only time he has made a decent movie, she was the one writing it.
Thank You for Smoking & Up in the Air weren’t written by her.
Yeah. And those movies sucked.
What? Thank You For Smoking is an EXCELLENT film.
It’s been a while, but I didn’t like it when I watched it a long time ago. It just seemed smug and libertarian. I never quite understood why Katie Holmes’s journalist character was supposed to be so awful, besides the fact that we’re supposed to automatically hate journalists. And I didn’t understand why we were supposed to side with Aaron Eckhart’s character, except for the fact that he’s the protagonist.
a cynical story where the smoking lobbyist is the hero and the truth-seeking journalist and liberal senators are the villains? well dearest me, that’s not SATIRE, is it??????
Hot takes! Getcher hot takes here!
I know Up in the Air was up for an Oscar, but are those movies really that well liked? Up in the Air struck me as a movie about the Great Recession written and directed by some out of touch Hollywood aristocrat.
It does deviate somewhat from the source material, which was about someone more of a loser than Clooney dealing with the Dot Com crash.
Yeah, but that’s a complaint about the director, not the movie. The movie featured career-best or near-best performances from the leads (Clooney’s better in Out of Sight and maybe Oh Brother Where Art Thou) and it’s emotionally resonant. However, Reitman first outed himself as an out-of-touch douchebag during the Oscar campaign for the movie, where he congratulated himself non-stop for using actual recently laid off people as the people getting fired (well, except for J.K. Simmons in the one firing scene that really mattered). But the movie works well despite Reitman being a self-satisfied child of privilege.
Agreed! I really, really don’t like Reitman’s films, but his Cody films have been the best of the lot.
Definitely trust the taste of someone who thinks Juno was well-written
I wholehartedly disagree.
The ghosts are being busted by a sarcastic pregnant teenager who speaks in pop-culture riddles.
It easily makes over $100 million on opening weekend.
“What did you do, Ray?”“Oh shit.”“It’s a hamburger phone.”
At least that sounds like it might be funny, unlike the actual maudlin, nostalgia-soaked crap.
Diablo Cody ghostbuster: “It’s time to Pokemon Go back to Hell, because these Hips Don’t Lie, Boss Baby!” Gozer: “I…wait what?”
I could only watch it by not being in the rooms where it was screened
Because spoilers it has ghosts in it and Bill Murray makes a cameo or something.
Nah the twist is the Ghostbusters intentionally drugged the whole city of New York then faked the ghosts; Egon died in a bunker where he was in hiding because he was convinced people would find out and send him to prison. Peter is a faith healer and cult leader in Central America, Ray does e-readings in the mall, and Winston runs a pyramid scheme under the guise of a for-profit trade school. The trailers are all fake, the real story is about the New York DA (played by an actress with digital makeup to look like Janet Margolin’s character from the 80s movies) trying to get Jeanine to turn state’s evidence against her old employers, but things take a turn when the real evidence… is love.
The Guardian review all but states that SPOILERS———-CGI Harold Ramis shows up
I read that review and sank into the floor. That sounds so ghoulish and terribly thought out.
So no one could hear them screaming about how bad it was?
*Jason slides a napkin with what looks like a poop emoji with a line drawn through it and the number ‘3′ in the corner across the lacquered conference room table*
*Ted turns it around and sighs*
“This is the script? You know what, don’t worry Jason, we’ll give you the Hollywood kid treatment. We’ll salvage your dad’s name. I’ll get someone on this. We’ll have a script in a week*
“No prob Ted, I just want to stop seeing Ghostbuster fans. This should fix it.”
“I don’t go a day in my life without seeing someone wearing a Ghostbusters T-shirt,” Maybe you should try leaving your house, jerk off.
jerk offThat’s where the ghostbusters shirt comes into play
Hey, fuck you! Not my fault my subdivision was built by Ivo fucking Shandor.
If that was true, GB shirts would be the thing I’d last expect to see in said subdivision.
Imagine deciding one day that you were finally gonna strap on an apron and man the counter at your family shop
except the family shop is the Ghostbusters franchise
“I don’t go a day in my life without seeing someone wearing a Ghostbusters T-shirt”
Really? I expected he lived in L.A., not a DeMoines, Iowa shopping mall food court.
He grew up in a Hot Topic.
I’m picturing the executives thinking “wait, they went to all that effort and locked me in a damn cell to read this?” by about page 20.
“hey everyone you wanna come into this locked secure room and check out this steamy wet turd on a plate?”
I’m sure he’ll come out just fine on the other side, but Finn Wolfhard has entered a serious uggo phase.
He and Bella Ramsey from GoT (and now The Last of Us) should get an apartment together and just buckle down until they both come out of their cocoons
I’d be fine if Wolfhard never emerged.
Not a fan of his music?
The only thing I want to see LESS than a lame Ghostbusters slapstick comedy with a stupid gender-flip gimmick and no script whatsoever is a masturbatory, navel-gazing nostalgia-fest Ghostbusters movie aimed at the neckbeard pedants who were OFFENDED BY the lame Ghostbusters slapstick comedy with a stupid gender-flip gimmick and no script whatsoever. This movie, its director, and the whole franchise from Extreme Ghostbusters on can go straight to hell. Apparently Egon keeps it in his basement.
I am certain our live will change significantly upon the release of this very important film.
They think *that’s* bad? *I* had to show him my BALLS!
The truth was it was just a single page that said “Ghostbuster but with Stranger Things”
The execs were initially skeptical of the logline being “TFW Ghostbusters but nostalgia. Childhood FTW! All the feels.” But their fears were allayed when they read the Written By credit and it said “My Dad did the Ghostbusters everybody likes.”
Also the foot note that says “Also there are no icky adult ladies in this movie being funny!”Seriously Ghostbusters 2016 has a lot of faults but at least it didn’t feel like an unwanted hand job from a nostalgia ghost like Afterlife looks like
“…Ghostbusters 2016 has a lot of faults…”I know I watched it. All that I remember from it is that one of the Chris’s were in it, and he was the best part of the entire film. I like all of the actors in the movie, but it is entirely forgettable. I do think that ECTO-1 was in it, so there’s that, I guess. Nostalgia movies bum me out because all it does is make me want to see the original again. The only aside to this is Blade Runner 2049, which is infinitely re-watchable and a great 35 year late sequel to a film that never needed a sequel.