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 Manchu wrote:
So she’s not an opportunist because she has suffered the negative aspects of celebrity? That doesn’t follow.

Your argument is she is doing this for publicity. My argument is that publicity is dangerous at times and that cannot be all she is interested in. She may actually be upset about this move. Is that not a possibility with you?

I have no doubt she is truly upset, although I think it has more to do with what that implies about her own career than whether society is just and good.

I also agree that publicity — actually, the right term is celebrity — that celebrity can be dangerous as well as profitable. But those who embark on the venture are well aware of the risk.

That doesn’t absolve people who hack into celebrities’ personal information or threaten them. Those dangers shouldn’t be ones we just take for granted. But commercial failure is a risk we can and should take for granted in business.

GB2016 was a commercial failure. Ms. Jones can have no reasonable expectation that a business would throw good money after bad. But she can try her hand at information alchemy by reframing what anyone can see is a sound business decsision as a matter of injustice.

 Manchu wrote:
I have no doubt she is truly upset, although I think it has more to do with what that implies about her own career than whether society is just and good.

I also agree that publicity — actually, the right term is celebrity — that celebrity can be dangerous as well as profitable. But those who embark on the venture are well aware of the risk.

That doesn’t absolve people who hack into celebrities’ personal information or threaten them. Those dangers shouldn’t be ones we just take for granted. But commercial failure is a risk we can and should take for granted in business.

GB2016 was a commercial failure. Ms. Jones can have no reasonable expectation that a business would throw good money after bad. But she can try her hand at information alchemy by reframing what anyone can see is a sound business decsision as a matter of injustice.

You could also say the same thing about Ghostbusters 2. Especially since the movie killed the chances of a third movie for decades.

No in fact you could not say the same thing about GB2. The exact opposite is true. GB2 was a tremendous financial success.

 Manchu wrote:
No in fact you could not say the same thing about GB2. The exact opposite is true. GB2 was a tremendous financial success.

It was a huge financial success. But as far as fans and critics, it was a big failure. So much so that a main actor from the movie didn't want to be involved anymore and it took more than two decades to even get a script the studio was okay with. Even then, they still couldn't get the original four together on screen. Which means the movie was a huge financial failure because it prevented the franchise from moving forward, like everybody at the time was predicting. Sure, GB2 made money. But GB3 should have made money as well had there been one. But because of GB2, that did not happen.

Strange that GB2016 had the living Ghostbuster's in it and they all even liked it. Some of them went on a tour for the movie talking about it. They just did cameos! Hell, Sigourney Weaver was in there. That was after she said she would only do another if her kid was one of the new Ghostbuster's in the lost 2014 project!

So you’re arguing that GB3 was held up by Murray refusing to do the picture because GB2 was critically panned. And that this, in turn, means GB2 is a financial failure because entirely hypothetical profits from a movie that was never made failed to exist. Despite the possibility that, had the movie been made, it may not have been profitable. That’s a horrible argument.

Whatever the many (and, ya know, actual) reasons GB3 wasn’t made, the point remains that GB2016 was a financial failure. Not in your sense of money that was never made on a picture that didn’t exist. I mean, a financial failure in that it contributed significantly to the loss of value of Sony Pictures. Considering that, please explain why Sony would (or even should) invest in a sequel.

The lesson Sony evidently learned from GB2016 is that the value of the IP is not just the name, logo, and high-level concept but all of those things PLUS the characters established in the 1984 film, who subsequently appeared (to varying degrees of success) in another movie, in cartoons, video games, and as toys and other licensed products which have sold well for 35 years.

Okay you keep saying "A main actor didn't want to to it because GB2 was bad" that's not even the thing Bill Murray admitted as his reasoning... And most of it really was about the issues in the background that he was trying to pull his career up on his on after having a major slump. It was not GB2's dislike that brought him away from it.

Strange that GB2016 had the living Ghostbuster's in it and they all even liked it. Some of them went on a tour for the movie talking about it. They just did cameos! Hell, Sigourney Weaver was in there. That was after she said she would only do another if her kid was one of the new Ghostbuster's in the lost 2014 project!

Because the best thing for someone's career is to pan the movie they were in right?.

The Sony hack revealed the studio was prepared to sue Bill Murray into participating. Dan Ayckroyd had serious issues with Paul Feig and is on camera blaming Feig for $30-40 million in reshoots, thereby making a sequel impossible. He made these pointed comments notwithstanding his vested interest in the movie’s success. Even Ernie Hudson said he didn’t think fans would want an all-female reboot. It’s hardly an uncomplicated sense of love for GB2016 coming from these guys.

Midnights Edge has done a very good breakdown of GB 2016 and the controversy that surrounded it.

 Manchu wrote:
The Sony hack revealed the studio was prepared to sue Bill Murray into participating. Dan Ayckroyd had serious issues with Paul Feig and is on camera blaming Feig for $30-40 million in reshoots, thereby making a sequel impossible. He made these pointed comments notwithstanding his vested interest in the movie’s success. Even Ernie Hudson said he didn’t think fans would want an all-female reboot. It’s hardly an uncomplicated sense of love for GB2016 coming from these guys.

Given Paul Feig's track record of keeping his film budgets around $40 million( some exceptions, though ), I'd guess such reshoots were at the request of Sony due to the vfx. Sony wanted a female cast and chose Feig to fit that requirement, but what they had not figured on was his lack of experience with crowd-pleasing vfx banazas. I personally feel he delivered on the vfx front, but apparently I'm in the minority there.

As for Dan disputing the cost of the movie, it was a major summer blockbuster which usually do command budgets of $150+ million. Whatever the reshoots were, they certainly did not kill off the chance of a sequel. The awful trailer did that...

The other thing is Paul Feig is notorious about having actors ablib most of their scenes. This can be great if you have people like Kirsten Wig and Melissa McCarthy. But in Brides maids they could pull from personal experiences add their comedic spin on it and make magic.
But with Ghost busters that formula doesn't work, None of them have dealt with the supernatural in real life and probably didn't have interest in Sci-fi prior to the movie. Also most actors already say green screen work is very difficult.. Then add to it you need to ablib half the
scene trying to be scared and funny to something you don't have a clue what you are acting against. Is it big, red have horns?? A lot easier when its just a fellow actor. They do have movies like "Best in show" and "Spinal Tap" that are improvisational movies, but don't
do it if you have a major budget for special effects and end up making a parody of a great movie unless that was your target all along like space balls.

The other thing with the Sony leak it was Amy Pascal wanted a Strong woman movie, don't shoe horn something in that might not work.
If they wanted a strong female.. Ghost Busters already had Sigourney Weaver, proven to kick butt in other movies, Add a little reasoning, like make her the lead and recruiting women because the villain can control men..ghost sirens.
But good stories that make good movies have a reasoning behind them.. Modern movies don't understand that anymore.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
No doubt, and probably because they are, after all, two sides of the same coin.

So one side used it to stir hate and resentment and the other side used it to make money. Meanwhile the cast is in the middle of all this getting flak for just being in a movie and Leslie Jones is the bad guy now. For standing up for herself and the movie.

The same coin you say?

I'd argue both sides used it to stir up hate and resentment, just with varying mixes of the two ingredients.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Okay you keep saying "A main actor didn't want to to it because GB2 was bad" that's not even the thing Bill Murray admitted as his reasoning... And most of it really was about the issues in the background that he was trying to pull his career up on his on after having a major slump. It was not GB2's dislike that brought him away from it.

Strange that GB2016 had the living Ghostbuster's in it and they all even liked it. Some of them went on a tour for the movie talking about it. They just did cameos! Hell, Sigourney Weaver was in there. That was after she said she would only do another if her kid was one of the new Ghostbuster's in the lost 2014 project!

Because the best thing for someone's career is to pan the movie they were in right?.

They had shown up as cameos and they were in no way obligated to do that. Also, Bill Murray admitted his reasoning for not wanting to be in GB2 was because it was bad and he hated being in it. So no, it wasn't a whole lot about the background. It was about not liking the movie.

 Manchu wrote:
The Sony hack revealed the studio was prepared to sue Bill Murray into participating. Dan Ayckroyd had serious issues with Paul Feig and is on camera blaming Feig for $30-40 million in reshoots, thereby making a sequel impossible. He made these pointed comments notwithstanding his vested interest in the movie’s success. Even Ernie Hudson said he didn’t think fans would want an all-female reboot. It’s hardly an uncomplicated sense of love for GB2016 coming from these guys.

Ernie Hudson later walked those comments back and showed full support of the movie.

Genoside07 wrote:The other thing is Paul Feig is notorious about having actors ablib most of their scenes. This can be great if you have people like Kirsten Wig and Melissa McCarthy. But in Brides maids they could pull from personal experiences add their comedic spin on it and make magic.
But with Ghost busters that formula doesn't work, None of them have dealt with the supernatural in real life and probably didn't have interest in Sci-fi prior to the movie. Also most actors already say green screen work is very difficult.. Then add to it you need to ablib half the
scene trying to be scared and funny to something you don't have a clue what you are acting against. Is it big, red have horns?? A lot easier when its just a fellow actor. They do have movies like "Best in show" and "Spinal Tap" that are improvisational movies, but don't
do it if you have a major budget for special effects and end up making a parody of a great movie unless that was your target all along like space balls.

The other thing with the Sony leak it was Amy Pascal wanted a Strong woman movie, don't shoe horn something in that might not work.
If they wanted a strong female.. Ghost Busters already had Sigourney Weaver, proven to kick butt in other movies, Add a little reasoning, like make her the lead and recruiting women because the villain can control men..ghost sirens.
But good stories that make good movies have a reasoning behind them.. Modern movies don't understand that anymore.

Well no, nobody has dealt with the supernatural in real life. Because it doesn't exist. Not sure what you are going for here. Also, their interest in sci-fi shouldn't really have anything to do with it.

Also, putting Sigourney Weaver in a reboot doesn't really make sense. They were going to just do another GB3 sequel with her kid from the other movies as a new ghostbuster. That was actually the only way she agreed to do that one, if that were to happen. Otherwise she wanted nothing to do with it.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
No doubt, and probably because they are, after all, two sides of the same coin.

So one side used it to stir hate and resentment and the other side used it to make money. Meanwhile the cast is in the middle of all this getting flak for just being in a movie and Leslie Jones is the bad guy now. For standing up for herself and the movie.

The same coin you say?

I'd argue both sides used it to stir up hate and resentment, just with varying mixes of the two ingredients.

They did. But I don't think the cast was really on any side, they were just trying to make/defend their movie/themselves from attacks. I even made the argument earlier in the thread that both sides(Not the actors) were very malicious towards each other. Granted, the ones being sexist about the movie certainly deserved the vitriol, but there was spill over in to those who wanted the movie to be good and were giving honest critiques of what they had seen.

The problem was the movie didn't get to fail or succeed on its own. It was already deemed a failure and to many people, because of the controversy, was not worth their time anymore. One side won by throwing vitriol, threats, and what seems to be lies and the other side was left holding the bill. Which was the entire goal, they didn't want the movie to succeed and they managed to do that. They were vocal enough to get national attention and that national attention ruined the movie for a lot of people.

Dread winter is absolutely correct, it's well documented that the critics etc. Started attacking the fans before the movie even came out, they knew they had a lame duck on their hands and decided to align themselves with a particular movement in the hopes of getting more bums in seats, this backfired in a spectacular manner, who would have thought that insulting the very people you want to watch your film would mean they won't go and see your film.

I only hope that Sony has learned from this mistake and told it's producers, actors and other staff to stfu and stay off Twitter, dont stir up the fans and just do their jobs, don't get involved with the controversy and don't MAKE the controversy... In fact this should be standard operating procedure.

 Formosa wrote:
I only hope that Sony has learned from this mistake and told it's producers, actors and other staff to stfu and stay off Twitter, dont stir up the fans and just do their jobs, don't get involved with the controversy and don't MAKE the controversy... In fact this should be standard operating procedure.

Too late. That's why there's another "controversy".

It’s pretty simple. A totally insipid comedy film failed at the box office.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
I only hope that Sony has learned from this mistake and told it's producers, actors and other staff to stfu and stay off Twitter, dont stir up the fans and just do their jobs, don't get involved with the controversy and don't MAKE the controversy... In fact this should be standard operating procedure.

Too late. That's why there's another "controversy".

No one has come out and attacked the fans yet with "ismphobes", all they have done is said its not a sequel to GB 2016 and announced the film and thats it, its just lesley jones that has made some pretty dim statements so far, which is just spillover from the last movie.

mind you I should say "yet" as you are probably right and its only a matter of time before the journos (activists) start dropping the rage bait for stupid people.

 Formosa wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
I only hope that Sony has learned from this mistake and told it's producers, actors and other staff to stfu and stay off Twitter, dont stir up the fans and just do their jobs, don't get involved with the controversy and don't MAKE the controversy... In fact this should be standard operating procedure.

Too late. That's why there's another "controversy".

No one has come out and attacked the fans yet with "ismphobes", all they have done is said its not a sequel to GB 2016 and announced the film and thats it, its just lesley jones that has made some pretty dim statements so far, which is just spillover from the last movie.

mind you I should say "yet" as you are probably right and its only a matter of time before the journos (activists) start dropping the rage bait for stupid people.

Actually.... You are pretty far behind the times on this. Journalists all ready are trashing fans of the original series, and have been for a week. I'm not just talking about fringe elements either, I'm talking about mainstream publications like Forbes.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Actually.... You are pretty far behind the times on this. Journalists all ready are trashing fans of the original series, and have been for a week. I'm not just talking about fringe elements either, I'm talking about mainstream publications like Forbes.

Do you have a source for this claim? I just read 3 articles on the Forbes site (well, skimmed them) and didn't really see anything like that. The closest they came to was

It wasn’t. The reboot wasn’t clever, or funny, but bland, and the gender politics magnified the controversy, warping it into an ideological debate. And Ghostbusters is not the correct battleground for such a conversation.

It was a similar situation to what happened with The Last Jedi, in which hateful trolls were lumped in with disappointed fans, and the two groups started to exchange DNA. The discourse becomes so removed from the original point that it isolates angry, frustrated fans, who aren’t exactly the most reasonable at the best of times, prompting many to direct their anger against progressive causes.

Which was pretty insightful, and made a distinction between the fandom, and the trolls. And wasn't even about GB, to boot.

There was a different article that points out the GB3 director had had a string of flops and is failing upwards to this film, which seems both accurate and uncontroversial.

So obviously you saw something else which I didn't find.

Wow that's quite Ballanced for forbes, colour me surprised, let's see what Huffington post, BuzzFeed and Washington post have to say about it soon, they are the ones to watch out for.

Trust Scott Mendelsohn to deliver studio-approved castiagtion of the “toxic fnbase”:

it's hard not to view the film as a glorified rebuttal of the 2016 reboot and a relative victory for the very worst Ghostbusters fans that turned the Paul Feig-directed "all lady" reboot into a giant online talking point

He argues, somewhat incoherently, that Jason Reitman’s upcoming film isn’t the result of “the last Ghostbusters flopping (or the cultural sexism in play)” but rather that GB2016 itself should have been a sequel to GB1/GB2. Even so he can’t resist perpetuating Sony’s “toxic fan” narrative, which he so dutifully pushed when Lucasfilm adopted it in 2017.

The toxic fan narrative is not going away. Entertainment media has totally devoted itself to it ideologically as well as financially, to the point where even while publications like Buzzfeed are laying off their writers and Gawker can't find a buyer they have nothing else to rely on as a strategy. I'm sure that film studios are only too happy to take advantage of the free publicity. They're all just going to keep pushing it until people tune out altogether and they go out of business. It's a desperate short term strategy with no long term payoff, but they're so reliant on it for those little bursts of controversy and interest that they have little choice but to ride it into the ground.

The "toxic fan narrative" won't go away until the toxic fans do.

Or are we really going to keep pretending that they don't exist?

You don’t have dig too deeply on the internet to find someone saying whatever you’re looking for. No one disputes that there are some real weirdos out there. The dispute is that these peope can suddenly be so powerful and compelling as to convince millions not to see a blockbuster film.

 Manchu wrote:
You don’t have dig too deeply on the internet to find someone saying whatever you’re looking for. No one disputes that there are some real weirdos out there. The dispute is that these peope can suddenly be so powerful and compelling as to convince millions not to see a blockbuster film.

Your continued insistence as it being a "narrative" does in fact imply a dispute to these people even existing. "Narrative" is a loaded term and you very much should be aware of that, but let's just continue on from that.

And really, if you "don't have to dig too deeply on the internet" to find people saying this crap...do you really think people aren't being exposed to it?

Pretending that it requires this garbage to be some kind of "powerful and compelling" argument is fallacious as well---people generally seem to be on the fence with regards to reboots, and it doesn't help when people spread false rumors or imply that there is some kind of "narrative"(read: implying that someone is tilting things their way) to generate ill will towards something that many people considered a 'beloved franchise'.

 Manchu wrote:
You don’t have dig too deeply on the internet to find someone saying whatever you’re looking for. No one disputes that there are some real weirdos out there. The dispute is that these peope can suddenly be so powerful and compelling as to convince millions not to see a blockbuster film.

thats the kicker right there isnt it, who is it that normies see the most, these "Toxic fans" or the mass media harping on about anyone not liking GB2016 is an "ismphobe", most normies will think, well i dont like the look of that movie, and the people making it are calling me names and telling me its not for people like me, they are also saying all the fans are horrible people, so why would i want to go and see it and be involved with such "toxic" people.

its almost like a funny self fulfilling prophecy.

whether or not any of us agree how good the film was, i am sure we can all agree the real "toxic" "fans" are the critics (activists) and ragebait media.

And my point is literally made for me by Formosa.

Referring to people as "normies" and a whine about "activists" and "ragebait media"...you want an example of a toxic fan?

There ya go. Right. Fricking. There.

The narrative is that people with socially unacceptable bigoted viewpoints are convincing millions of others to not see a movie.

I don’t dispute at all that there are wacko racists and woman-haters out there on the internet.

But we know for a fact that Sony did push a narrative that GB2016 was torpedoed by those wackos rather than just being a mediocre, unfunny movie with ugly effects. And then the same narrative was trotted out to defend The Last Jedi.

I wonder if it will make a return if GB3 is a dud. The ‘Next Gen’ Ghostbusters in Jason Reitman’s film will no doubt be diverse. If the trailer looks like garbage, will Sony manipulate the comments section again?

 Manchu wrote:
The narrative is that people with socially unacceptable bigoted viewpoints are convincing millions of others to not see a movie.

I don’t dispute at all that there are wacko racists and woman-haters out there on the internet.

But we know for a fact that studios like Sony did push a narrative that GB2016 was torpedoed by those wackos rather than just being a mediocre, unfunny movie with ugly effects.

And we also know for a fact that there were "wackos" organizing mass boycotts and downvoting videos/reviews for things like GB2016 and TLJ.

Funny how your continued mention of a "narrative" forgets that, eh?

And to talk about the edit:

Manchu wrote:. And then the same narrative was trotted out to defend The Last Jedi.

I wonder if it will make a return if GB3 is a dud. The ‘Next Gen’ Ghostbusters in Jason Reitman’s film will no doubt be diverse. If the trailer looks like garbage, will Sony manipulate the comments section again?

So we'll talk about Sony "manipulating the comments section", but when the same crap gets done by the "wackos"...it doesn't get any mention.

 Kanluwen wrote:
And my point is literally made for me by Formosa.

Referring to people as "normies" and a whine about "activists" and "ragebait media"...you want an example of a toxic fan?

There ya go. Right. Fricking. There.

somebody doesn't get irony

I am using the terms they use hence the quotation marks, and "Ragebait" is a term coined by an M.I.T study into the new version of clickbait, anger, according to the study, is the thing that makes people click the most and is more likely to be shared by the target audience, regardless of affiliation.

And "Normies" is a term i quite like for the people who do not frequent the internet and do not really know about all this "culture war" nonsense, people like my mum for example, would you prefer "muggles" lol

And i am not a fan of ghostbusters, I just like it, I am a fan of Star trek and star wars though and B5.