So, having read through the pre-production thread, I'm curious from those who actually work in the business whether this is all pretty typical of how films get made.
If so, it pretty much confirms my attitude that idiot suits who don't understand or care the first thing about storytelling are running the show, and it is nothing short of a miracle that decent films end up being made at all.
I can't get over how haphazard and focused around "We need this director. We need that star," never mind that they don't even have a story. The following
email from Amy Pascal (in response to Ivan Reitman being pissed that the film was being considered a "reboot") pretty much encapsulates my issues:
I agree that everyone is way too nervous about how this issue and how we. present it but it's isn't a sequel to the 80s movies and it is gonna be totally original with completely different characters and our job is to find a clever way to connect the movie to the original franchise so that we can use all the assets and everything that is great about the original franchise
And at the same time we want to create a "hub" /company for classic ghostbusters that
Will make other additional movies and television and
Maybe theater and toys and channels and video games and all the things we talked about .
Paul's movie is gonna be the first one and from what I'm hearing jennifer lawrence and Emma stone and Melissa McCarthy and Amy schumer and liszzy Kaplan just to name a few have already said thy wanted to be in....
Ivan you should never be seen as antagonistic to Paul's ideas ... I don't think with this s vod bull**** that any of us have actually heard Paul's full idea.... I suggest by the end if next week we do that
If we want the movie for summer 2016 which I do that means we need a script by January at the latest And we should probably start thinking what stages are gonna be available since everyone is gearing up for their spring start dates
In also want ing to get a visual effects supervisor ASAP... That is gonn be. Critical to this movie working
(Errors were in the original email because, apparently, producers also don't care about writing legibly.)
This film has been -- from day 1 -- about capitalizing on the
brand and the
assets that make up the facade of Ghostbusters, rather than about capturing the soul of the original work and channeling that into a modern film. Feig's involvement has been about capturing a different "brand" -- namely the hot comedic director and his usual players.
But seriously, take a look at the email, in particular the segment I bolded.
Let's be clear:
These people have no idea what the hell they want, other than "To make a lot of money and to franchise all aspects of this brand."
They don't care about storytelling. They don't care about respecting the old property (and actually, the emails show a fairly clear trend towards gradually distancing the brand from the original film and Ivan Reitman. To the extent that they "respect" the older stuff, it's a respect for the marketing value of it.
And all of this is reflecting in what gets leaked from the set. The production design, the "nods" and "winks" to the original like Akroyd's cameo, the makeup of the team, it all just suggests that nobody with any clear vision is at the helm, or -- at best -- you have a guy with a fairly clear vision (Feig) whose vision is overridden by corporate hacks who think storytelling is like going to a buffet where you just pick bits of this and bits of that to make your meal.
Ultimately, from reading through the email thread, it seems that Sony acceded to Feig partially because they wanted him on board, but also because they appreciated his vision of a new franchise. Feig's email to them hints at sequels and potential directions for the rest of the story, and my guess is that they saw it, loved it, and decided they wanted to do it...kinda.
Now, I'll say this. If what ends up being on screen is what was -- in broad strokes -- in Feig's email, that is, indeed, a very different direction from the original film. The two big directional shifts in Feig's pitch are:
1. There's an attempt to cover up the ghost incident in NYC.
2. The Ghostbusters end up working with the government, who covers it up and reveals they've been covering up ghost incidents for decades, but now recognizes they need the Ghostbusters. In the future, a government appointed person publicly denounces them, but privately apologizes and backs them, and says she's only doing it because they need to maintain the cover story.
The thing is, from the sound of it, that's not happening. When you're filming hordes of people running away from a ghost T-Rex, or Dan Akroyd being accosted in his cab, it becomes basically impossible to cover up the ghost incident. Again, this strikes me as "we're gonna do a totally original, fresh, different take...except not! Make it different....but make it the same." And all of this just screams to me that the people behind this film do not have a clear direction or vision for where everything is headed. They just new they had to leverage that Ghostbusters property, and they wanted Feig to helm it because Feig is a moneymaker.