If you thought the fandom uproar over the 2016 gender-bent reboot of Ghostbusters was finally dead, get ready—it's about to come roaring back and smear its green ectoplasm all over the internet.
Just over two years since director Paul Feig ruined countless dudes' childhoods by casting comedy legends Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon in a feminist version of the franchise, Sony has announced that a new sequel is in the works, this time set in the universe of the original 1984 movie.
Jason Reitman will direct and co-write an upcoming film set in the world that was saved decades previously by the proton pack-wearing working stiffs in the original 1984 movie, which was directed by his father, Ivan Reitman.
"I've always thought of myself as the first Ghostbusters fan, when I was a 6-year-old visiting the set. I wanted to make a movie for all the other fans," Reitman says. "This is the next chapter in the original franchise. It is not a reboot. What happened in the '80s happened in the '80s, and this is set in the present day."
There's already a spooky teaser for the film, featuring the original Ecto-1 car:
But before anyone tries to pretend the all-female version never existed, it's worth looking back at the fandom backlash it generated and what that might mean for the next iteration.
You may still have flashbacks of certain Ghostbusters fanboys and anti-feminist Reddit communities who were so outraged by the idea of four women replacing Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson that they started trashing the movie long before it hit theaters. One movie critic on YouTube refused to even watch it, and things hit a new low when Leslie Jones was targeted by internet trolls who hacked her phone, posted nude pictures of her online, and shared her personal phone number. (The fact that she was the only black actress in the cast was, of course, a complete coincidence.)
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Those critics are probably feeling very pleased with themselves today, but here's the next question: could Jason Reitman really get away with going back to four straight male leads after everything that's happened?
First of all, the Ghostbusters reboot may not have been the huge commercial success Sony was looking for, but life will never be the same for women everywhere after this badass fight scene featuring Kate McKinnon's gloriously queer character Jillian Holtzmann. (Would Sony confirm Holtzmann was queer? No. Does anybody buy that for a second? Also no.)
You could even argue that without that scene paving the way, we may never have gotten scenes like this one:
Or this one:
Or this one:
This gives Reitman two options for the new Ghostbusters: either pander to fanboys and alienate all the other fans who are now hungry for women superheroes, or try to diversify things and risk pissing off the trolls who don't want "SJW crap" in their Ghostbusters movies.
Can you imagine what would happen if one or more of the new Ghostbusters turn out to be women? Or queer? Maybe even a queer woman??
Have fun with that, Sony!
