If it is taken as its own thing, the trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife seems like a perfectly serviceable teaser for a nostalgic Spielbergian adventure film about kids facing the supernatural and discovering family legacies. What it doesn't look like, however, is a Ghostbusters movie, in spite of the film clearly trying to play off nostalgia for the original series in a similar way the trailers for The Force Awakens played off Star Wars nostalgia.
That tone of reverence towards the Ghostbusters mythology is ironically the very thing about it that feels the least like Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters was many things, but reverent wasn't one of them.
The original Ghostbusters, its sequel and the 2016 reboot film were all comedies. The whole hook of Ghostbusters was taking an apocalyptic supernatural scenario and treating it all as a lark, where the heroes saving the day are a schlubby bunch of geeks and sleazeballs played by Saturday Night Live comedians. While the original delivered well enough on the supernatural material to be scary for kids, it was silly funhouse horror that no adult would ever take seriously... and why would they want to when it's so funny?
The 2016 reboot, for all the criticisms, both warranted (being yet another unnecessary reboot) and unwarranted ("HOW DARE WIMMENZ BE GHOSTBUSTRZ!?!"), actually stuck to the original's formula more closely than Afterlife appears to. A team of four comedic stars forming a small business to fight ghosts in New York City? You can debate whether it was a good Ghostbusters movie or not, but it sure sounds like a Ghostbusters movie.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife might be bringing back the characters from the first two movies, as well as introducing the grandkids of the dearly departed Egon, but the film looks detached from most of what made Ghostbusters entertaining in the first place. There's some comic relief lines ("Remember that one summer we died under a table?") and some comedic actors like Paul Rudd in the supporting cast, but this doesn't look like a comedy in the slightest. Does this serious tone really make sense for a sequel to a film where Dan Aykroyd gets a ghost blowjob?
To be fair, there is a generation of kids who grew up in the '80s and took Ghostbusters far more seriously than generations both before and after. To everyone else, Ghostbusters was just a good comedy, but for some growing up watching the surprisingly complex Real Ghostbusters cartoon and buying all the toys, it captured the imagination like Star Wars. Perhaps this movie will please that slice of the nostalgia market, but whether that's enough to make the film a hit remains to be seen.
The bigger piece of the pie, in all likelihood, is international markets. Studio tentpoles are increasingly reliant on international viewers, and comedy is one of the hardest things to translate across borders. The 2016 Ghostbusters notably performed worse abroad than it did at home. Making a Ghostbusters film that's more reliant on action than on humor could be what's needed to make Ghostbusters hit in China... assuming it's not banned in China again for depicting ghosts.
We'll find out July 10, 2020, if Ghostbusters: Afterlife's more serious take on the franchise can connect with wide audiences and turn this into the tentpole franchise Sony so desperately wants it to be.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is directed by Jason Reitman, who also co-wrote the film with Gil Kenan. Starring Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd and Mckenna Grace, the film arrives in theaters July 10, 2020.