GHOSTBUSTERS Pre-Release - film discussion only, no social commentary please!

when you explain brand that way, yeah, I can see how you can say it's all about brand in that sense. that I can agree with.

As for Dan,

While it may be a product to some, I truly believe Dan lives, breaths and eats Ghostbusters. he's truly into paranormal stuff and things like aliens and alien abductions.
I think to him, Ghostbusters is a life time of living this stuff and developed into a product that he can truly sink his teeth into. Even more so than some of us on here, I think ghostbusters IS his life. otherwise he wouldn't have been driven insane trying to get a part 3 done for so long (tons of false promises and starts that may or may not have happened at all).


I think the only reason he agreed to this is because he got ghost corps. If ghost corps hadn't of happened, i doubt this would have if his rights to the franchise are truly strong enough to block things.


I'm curious just how much control sony has over it. could dan and ivan truly have stopped it if they wanted too? or would sony have given them someone to make them agree? or threaten to sue them like they would have with bill? is sony stronger in this case, or are the rights holders? I also think they just agreed to it after being drained from harolds death. the fight literally went out of them. I think reitman said that on at least one occasion...possibly in the leaked emails.
 
Has the potential lawsuit against Murray ever been reported by a credible source?

Just reading the Sony emails, it seems to me that the veto power wielded by the original creative team was quite compelling. Pascal seemed anxious about the possibility of Ivan losing faith in (or at least acceptance of) their new direction. Still, veto power over a production is not the same as ownership. Aykroyd could not sue over damage to the brand, because the brand belongs to Sony.
 
Westies14 said:
Has the potential lawsuit against Murray ever been reported by a credible source?

Just reading the Sony emails, it seems to me that the veto power wielded by the original creative team was quite compelling. Pascal seemed anxious about the possibility of Ivan losing faith in (or at least acceptance of) their new direction. Still, veto power over a production is not the same as ownership. Aykroyd could not sue over damage to the brand, because the brand belongs to Sony.
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I t hink the murray thing was ONLY in the leaked emails. I never really saw anyone follow up on that or confirm it with a lawfirm sony could have talked too, for instance.


Here's another wrinkle. and please excuse my ignorance since I'm going by memory here.

Columbia was it's own entity correct? Then, it got bought out by sony, and sony owned colubmia, correct?


back when columbia was in charge, would dan and company have had a stronger position? Or since Sony would be perceived as more of a power house, would their scale of rights be larger? Did Dan and Ivan EVER own ghostbusters outright (like Jason Hawes owns TAPS, and could take it away from SyFy), or was it always in the hands of columbia?
 
Westies14 said:
Feminism, involvement in pride parades, hospital visits to sick kids, this stuff is all great - but has zero bearing on the movie. Have you ever seen a film bend so far backwards to try and tie itself to outside positivity? Some of you guys may be buying the distraction from the obviously crummy product they're shoveling into theaters, but I'm more turned off than ever by Sony's attempts to leech off of the equity and positive energy of these unrelated movements. Visiting dying children and participating in social movements should be about supporting people, not about generating content for your social marketing. The individuals may believe in what they're doing and may feel good for having been a part of these events, but the coordinated Sony/GB tent they're operating under represents a transparent, insincere and crass display of opportunism.
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Thank you for saying this, because this sums up exactly how I feel. I dont see how people(jettajeffro, d_osborn) cant see through stuff like that as a marketing ploy from the studio that perpetuates the SJW aspect of the times, and that they are depending on it so they can get their money. Its beyond naive. It seriously makes me wonder if they arent from the studio in some capacity. Aside from the two I mentioned, and Karmajay, they are the ONLY ones that seem to be supportive of this trash.
 
Aykroyd loosely touched on the Murray legal wrangling in an interview with Esquire a few years ago, pre-reboot. The argument was basically that Murray had arbogated his approval rights by refusing to read any of the submitted scripts/treatments for GB3. Aykroyd didn't mention the litigation specifically, but that's what it was about.

Ghostbusters was always owned by Columbia. Before Sony, Columbia was owned by Coca-Cola-- the parent company really had no bearing on any of it. The 5-way approval rights of Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, Reitman, and Columbia were part of the deal for the gang signing on for GB2. From what I've gathered, then Columbia head David Putman didn't want anything to do with the GB crew and tried to push for a low-budget sequel without any of the original talent. Understandable, as the salaries for the original team was through the roof at that point. Once Putman was out and Dawn Steel took over, her main focus was a GB sequel, convincing the team to take scale pay with points down the line and the approval rights for the primaries.

@Westies14, you're totally right-- the approval rights were rock solid, and at any point during the period of the email leak, the reboot could have been shelved. There's no way Aykroyd could/would sue Sony, although I remember he DID walk off of the lot when development stalled on HELLBENT back in the late-90s.
 
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articles are coming fast and furious now.

Cute girl, ugly car...
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/06/14/ghostbusters-ecto-1-ride


One of the weirder articles out there...
it starts off by bashing nerds, trashing the angry video game nerd, goes into an odd tangent about AGVN as a person, and then just kind of...ends with a quote from an unknown, patton oswalt. still not sure what this one is about, it feels unfinished.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/fashion/ghostbusters-internet-attacks.html?_r=0


I'm honestly kind of shocked that one simple video by the angry video game nerd garnered not only so much attention, but so much hate, considering he wasn't even his usual swearing self, i honestly didn't think he was still that big of a net personality to garner that kind of reaction.

Imagine if chad vader weighed in on it.
 
Snikt said:
I dont see how people(jettajeffro, d_osborn) cant see through stuff like that as a marketing ploy from the studio that perpetuates the SJW aspect of the times, and that they are depending on it so they can get their money. Its beyond naive. It seriously makes me wonder if they arent from the studio in some capacity. Aside from the two I mentioned, and Karmajay, they are the ONLY ones that seem to be supportive of this trash.
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Yeah, I'm from the studio. I've been outed-- I'm here to market Feig's Ghostbusters. I've been here prepping for this summer since Jan 2002. I'm sipping my Sony champagne and typing this on a new Vaio while the UHD GB disc is playing on my 4K Sony display. Synergy, baby.

Pretty much any charitable event held by a major (or hell, minor) company is going to be a tax write off. That's the way of the world. Of course I know WHY they're doing it, and no, it doesn't bother me. There's good being done in the world, and I'm not going to take it upon myself to complain about it. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

...and while we're at it, screw Bill Gates for all the good he's done. We all know it's just Microsoft trying to look good.

@Snikt Since you called me out for being naive that the charitable/good will/feel good stuff doesn't bother me, I feel comfy in calling you out for generally being lame for hating on all of the good being done by the old fans and PR team behind GB16. That's about as kindly as I can put it. As a fellow fan with similar interests, I honestly hope your life outside the boards is happier than the vibe you put off here. :)
 
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NeilT said:
back when columbia was in charge, would dan and company have had a stronger position? Or since Sony would be perceived as more of a power house, would their scale of rights be larger? Did Dan and Ivan EVER own ghostbusters outright (like Jason Hawes owns TAPS, and could take it away from SyFy), or was it always in the hands of columbia?
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Sony would only have inherited Columbia's relative position to the original creative team, not a stronger one. Dan simply doesn't own the franchise. I imagine he's still got veto power (along with Murray and Reitman) over sequels, reboot or otherwise.
 
Westies14 said:
Sony would only have inherited Columbia's relative position to the original creative team, not a stronger one. Dan simply doesn't own the franchise. I imagine he's still got veto power (along with Murray and Reitman) over sequels, reboot or otherwise.
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I'm betting that a big part of the Ghost Corps formation was to simplify the approval rights fiasco with Murray. He's still making money hand-over-fist with the property, but I sincerely doubt Sony/Ghost Corps would have so many new GB projects in development if they all relied on Murray's approval, considering the new movie took 20+ years to get going.
 
Egon Spengler said:
He should have walked off on this one too.
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From what I gather, the only reason he didn't ever sign off on a sequel is because he has a huge amount of respect for their work on the original movie. Up until a few years ago, he considered it his best work. The idea that he was sold on for GB2 was changed, so there was bad blood there, too.

The second a remake was pitched with talent he admires, his name was on the line. Plus, didn't the dude just get a divorce? Probably wanted the money.
 
d_osborn said:
Yeah, I'm from the studio. I've been outed-- I'm here to market Feig's Ghostbusters. I've been here prepping for this summer since Jan 2002. I'm sipping my Sony champagne and typing this on a new Vaio while the UHD GB disc is playing on my 4K Sony display. Synergy, baby.

Pretty much any charitable event held by a major (or hell, minor) company is going to be a tax write off. That's the way of the world. Of course I know WHY they're doing it, and no, it doesn't bother me. There's good being done in the world, and I'm not going to take it upon myself to complain about it. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

...and while we're at it, screw Bill Gates for all the good he's done. We all know it's just Microsoft trying to look good.

@Snikt Since you called me out for being naive that the charitable/good will/feel good stuff doesn't bother me, I feel comfy in calling you out for generally being lame for hating on all of the good being done by the old fans and PR team behind GB16. That's about as kindly as I can put it. As a fellow fan with similar interests, I honestly hope your life outside the boards is happier than the vibe you put off here. :)
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Go ahead, be condascending, I was starting to feel left out because you do it to everyone else. But of course I forgot, youre SOOOO much better than everyone because you see the positive in everything and there is NO WAY that Sony or the marketing department could have any type of agenda by marketing the movie this way. *eyeroll* I love how you say something totally rude then back it up with an emoji to where you spin it like youre a nice guy. I hope youre not as insufferable in real life as you are on here. :) (see what I did there?) Reminds me of Taladega Nights "With all due respect, but F you". Its kind of ridiculous but whatever. And a charitable event? What were they doing besides plastering their commercials on people?

Bill Gates doesnt give to charitable donations to promote Microsoft Windows. People dont buy Microsoft products because Bill Gates donates money to charities. That argument isnt even valid.
 
Westies14 said:
Sony would only have inherited Columbia's relative position to the original creative team, not a stronger one. Dan simply doesn't own the franchise. I imagine he's still got veto power (along with Murray and Reitman) over sequels, reboot or otherwise.
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thank you ;o)


I guess when you sell a movie..the studio gets most of the control even if you created it.
oh well, one can dream dan can wrestle it away from sony one day.

it's clear those idiots have no idea what they are doing at this point.
 
To be fair, Dan's ideas for GB probably aren't gold either. There's a reason Bill turned down each sequel (he claims he did read at least a couple of them). It's not as though Aykroyd can do no wrong. Same for Reitman. What's astounding is that Sony couldn't find genuinely interested, talented people to run with this ball instead of popping it and buying an inferior new one.
 
NeilT said:
thank you ;o)


I guess when you sell a movie..the studio gets most of the control even if you created it.
oh well, one can dream dan can wrestle it away from sony one day.

it's clear those idiots have no idea what they are doing at this point.
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Under copyright law, that's generally considered a "work for hire." At best, you end up giving the studio a permanent, worldwide, exclusive license to use the work you created (with the right to sublicense it), even if you nominally retain ownership. In other words, you can collect a check, but you can't prevent a future project from going ahead without suing the studio for violating the license.

And that's best-case. More likely, you just hand it over to them and if you're luck, you get residuals. This story about the original guys having to sign off on everything might have been codified in some kind of agreement, but even so, my guess is that the real issue holding it back was Bill Murray just not wanting to get involved in a perpetual sequel machine. It wasn't that Akroyd wanted to specially shepherd the perfect project to fruition. I know he's all into the occult and such, but even if he did want to make the perfect film, he was one voice among many, and he was never going to get it to be exactly what he wanted. Once Harold died, there was just no point in fighting to do his vision anymore, so he signed off on this.

And, of course, he's not gonna throw the project under the bus or disavow it. There's money to be made, and I gather he gets some kind of hand in the future of the franchise, but I think it's a fair bet that Dan was brought along partially by the fact that he stood to gain a mountain of cash from this.


It doesn't really matter, though. The movie's being made. It's going to probably end up getting a sequel or two, which will probably decline in quality as they go along, and then it will inevitably be rebooted again in 5-10 years.
 
Westies14 said:
To be fair, Dan's ideas for GB probably aren't gold either. There's a reason Bill turned down each sequel (he claims he did read at least a couple of them). It's not as though Aykroyd can do no wrong. Same for Reitman.
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Have you read HELLBENT? A few cool ideas, but YEESH.

Maybe that's why I'm so indifferent on this thing. If it's good, cool. If not, no biggie-- it could have been much, MUCH, MUCH worse.

Solo4114 said:
It doesn't really matter, though. The movie's being made. It's going to probably end up getting a sequel or two, which will probably decline in quality as they go along, and then it will inevitably be rebooted again in 5-10 years.
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THIS. All of this bickering and complaining really does no good. There's no argument that can be made that will stop this movie from hitting screens.

For the record, I have nothing against you guys that I'm bickering with. We're all fans of this stuff. No biggie-- it's just snarky conversation. :)
 
Westies14 said:
To be fair, Dan's ideas for GB probably aren't gold either. There's a reason Bill turned down each sequel (he claims he did read at least a couple of them). It's not as though Aykroyd can do no wrong. Same for Reitman. What's astounding is that Sony couldn't find genuinely interested, talented people to run with this ball instead of popping it and buying an inferior new one.
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true.

but, dan's first idea had taken place in the future, and involved intergalatic ghostbusters!

Without murray, over time, that idea was allowed to evolve, and simplify and eventually, thanks to harold mostly (I think) and ivan, we got Ghostbusters. If Murray saw that original concept, he would have nixed it and it wouldn't have gotten to the evolved point we all know and love. murray was just a hired gun, but due to his star power, got far more than he deserved, i think. harold and dan and ivan did all the heavy lifting.


My theory, and i'm sticking to it, is everyone in hollywood knew who they'd have to work with at sony, and the idea of THAT prospect was enough to keep them away from even CONSIDERING the idea of going to the franchise. like you, I find it VERY hard to believe that there couldn't have been at least ONE person willing to tackle it.
We had 65 writers of the animated series coming up with GREAT ideas, both with big and small threats. we had the video game writers, who clearly got what made the basic concept work before dan and harold chimed in.....


there had to of been something behind the scenes that kept people away outside of the pressure of working on ghostbusters itself..
 
NeilT said:
true.

but, dan's first idea had taken place in the future, and involved intergalatic ghostbusters!

Without murray, over time, that idea was allowed to evolve, and simplify and eventually, thanks to harold mostly (I think) and ivan, we got Ghostbusters. If Murray saw that original concept, he would have nixed it and it wouldn't have gotten to the evolved point we all know and love. murray was just a hired gun, but due to his star power, got far more than he deserved, i think. harold and dan and ivan did all the heavy lifting.
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Nope. Belushi passed away while Aykroyd was still writing his first draft. After some time, Aykroyd dusted off the incomplete script and pitched Belushi's role to Murray, who agreed immediately. Aykroyd finished the script, pitched to Reitman, who then brought in Ramis. The rest is history.

Can somebody please quote this so Neil can see it? I'm guessing he still has me blocked.
 
d_osborn said:
Have you read HELLBENT? A few cool ideas, but YEESH.

Maybe that's why I'm so indifferent on this thing. If it's good, cool. If not, no biggie-- it could have been much, MUCH, MUCH worse.
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Right. Honestly, with the exception of Bill Murray, nobody involved has had a fantastic track record. Harold did...what, Year One? Whatever that awful caveman flick was. Ivan did Evolution, which was supposedly a "spiritual successor" to Ghostbusters. Dan I have no idea about.

I liked the video game for the Xbox, but aside from that, I was honestly never on board with a sequel. IF you were going to make a movie, I'd prefer it to be a true sequel, but I'd really rather they just have left the franchise alone, or continued it in non-cinematic productions (e.g. comics, video games, animated series, whatever).


THIS. All of this bickering and complaining really does no good. There's no argument that can be made that will stop this movie from hitting screens.

For the record, I have nothing against you guys that I'm bickering with. We're all fans of this stuff. No biggie-- it's just snarky conversation. :)
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I mean, don't get me wrong. I get the bickering, or at least a lot of it. The actual process of getting this film made has been quite a bit of sausage-making. The info that's leaked out has been -- at best -- mediocre. The whole thing seems pretty uninspired and not very funny, and largely wants to bank on the names and brands involved, plus the whole "And it's women!" thing, which conveniently has also generated "Plus, if you watch this, you get to hate on these asshats!" business.

But at a certain point, the ship has sailed and no amount of complaining will alter that.
 
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