Picture the cast of Ghostbusters. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis are funny people, sure. But what if they were all men? If you’re confused, join the club: In a head-scratcher of a move, Sony’s announced an “all-male” Ghostbusters reboot that’s expected to star Channing Tatum.
“All-male,” of course, also describes the original Ghostbusters, as well as most movies in general. The descriptor is meant to distinguish the film from the highly anticipated all-female reboot, which will feature an all-star cast. This other reboot will be “male-driven,” but presumably Tatum and friends will be doing the same thing as Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy: cracking jokes and zapping ghosts. For that reason, the two movies seem more like competitors than counterparts, with the male-centric version coming off as a tone-deaf contingency plan in case the other film fails at the box office.
Still, the real mystery here is Sony’s weird, inexplicable belief that audiences want not just two Ghostbusters reboots but an entire universe based on the 1984 movie. Deadline reports that the studio has also launched Ghostcorps, a new production company headed by Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd, and its sole mission is to “scare up branding opportunities” for the Ghostbusters franchise. The news isn’t too exciting, but fingers crossed that this ends with an all-Bill Murray reboot.
