More Ghostbusters and Terminator Are On the Way
Today brought assurances that two franchises long past their prime that refuse to die will return in some form. First, Variety exclusively reports that Netflix has picked up an animated Ghostbusters series with Elliott Kalan as a writer and executive producer. It’s unclear if this means he’ll be the showrunner or even the head writer, but I assume that’s the case. Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan, who wrote and directed Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, are also executive producing the show, which is said to be “tonally in line with the recent Ghostbusters films.” This series was first reported as being in development in 2022 – again exclusively by Variety, so this is just confirmation that it’s going to happen. Elliott Kalan was the head writer for The Daily Show when Jon Stewart was the host and wrote twenty-five episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000; he also produced and wrote for something called Housebroken.
I’m not thrilled with this, as I’m not a big fan of this Ghostbusters revival. Ghostbusters: Afterlife was okay but devolved into the usual legacy sequel tropes in its latter half (like bringing back the villains of the first movie so the new heroes could defeat them for realsies this time). Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire was a boring mess of a movie that gave its biggest character arc to a random ghost and dangled the surviving original cast members like keys in front of a crying baby. And bringing in the guy who wrote The Daily Show doesn’t make me curious. I know there were Ghostbusters cartoons in the past – I used to watch The Real Ghostbusters as a kid – but it’s of its time, much like the films, and as much as Ghostbusters is a classic, it doesn’t need to be beaten to death by the current rights holders (Sony). But it will be because everything that was once popular must be resurrected and desecrated now.
Speaking of which, James Cameron did a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and when the discussion moved to Terminator Zero, an animated series coming to Netflix, he mentioned that he’s working on a Terminator project of his own. He didn’t say if it’s a TV show, another movie, or something completely different, but he’s dipping his feet back into the sci-fi world he created the same year as Ghostbusters, 1984.
“I’m working on my own Terminator stuff right now. It’s got nothing to do with that… It’s totally classified. I don’t want to have to send out a potentially dangerous robotic agent if you were to talk about it, even retroactively.”
Again, I’m not happy about this, although, with the glut of awful Terminator content, it’s hard to get too mad about it. This is another series that should have ended long ago, with Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But the series continued for about thirty years without Cameron, who correctly viewed Terminator 2 as the end of his story. (Although he did give Arnold Schwarzenegger his blessing to do more, telling Arnie Terminator was as much his as it was Cameron’s.) It’s odd to see Cameron returning, since not only did he seem finished with it but he’s been all about Avatar for pretty much the entirety of the 21st century. But I guess either he was offered a ton of money, or he wanted to do something different after spending so much time on Pandora. Ironically, “doing something different” means going back to the series that made him famous. It’s also worth remembering that this is a different James Cameron than the guy who made The Terminator, one who called masculinity “poison” and regrets that his early movies featured guns so heavily. The chances of him making a good Terminator movie at this stage are minuscule at best.
The Terminator and Ghostbusters are two of a bunch of series that Hollywood refuses to let go of, but that desperately need to end. I would add Alien (which has a new entry coming out this week), Predator, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Tron (who’d have ever thought they’d make a second Tron movie, let alone a third?), The Matrix, Scream, and probably others I’m not remembering. The only reason Indiana Jones isn’t on there is that I think it finally is done. All of these started with films that range from good to flat-out classics, and they’ve all been diminished by not being allowed to leave the stage with dignity. And it looks like none of them are going anywhere anytime soon.
Tell us what you think about more Ghostbusters and Terminator, or any long-running series, in the comments!
Comments (2)
For my money, it’s James Bond. I’m not a fan of the Daniel Craig reboot era, but before that, twenty movies over forty years, and I like-to-love them all. I do a full rewatch once a year.
I know Top Cow Comics, but I’m not familiar with Think Tank. I’ll look it up, though.
That’s actually what the plan was for Ghostbusters back in the 90s. They were going to have the original Ghostbusters turn the business into a big franchise and start training newbies, and they were gonna cast some of the Saturday Night Live guys at the time, like Chris Farley and Mike Myers. One of the many ideas for more Ghostbusters that never panned out.
I think both are still relevant, but yeah, everything is diminished the longer it goes on. It would be a great question is, what franchise had the longest run of quality content? They are the ones you’d expect.
Terminator, in the age of Ai and robotics, should be better. Militarized robots are definitely going to be a thing. Terminator and Robocop should have more content because I do think that’s where we are headed. One thing I liked about the 4th or 5th one, was the appearance of that drone. Still, with Terminator, it’s almost like a replicant from Blade Runner, where you need that key actor. Was something The Rock or John Cena should have done.
Ghostbusters is the biggest disappointment. Animated? I used to enjoy that cartoon, which makes the sequel movies in the era even more of a letdown. Very poor steering of this franchise. It should get a Netflix show instead. My sister really enjoyed the Goosebumps series, so I think Ghostbusters should have tried to hire RL Stine as a writer. Same with that show about Exorcists called EVIL, which is the closest thing to what Ghostbusters should have been, which is a mix of comedy, surrealism and serious moments. Those writers should have been hired as well.
The thing about Ghostbusters is, you’d think think they’d go thru like the top comedians of the current day and see who wants to be in Ghostbusters, like, the top SNL guy or stand up. I always thought about ten years ago, that Jimmy Fallon and Jack Black would’ve been good. Blue collar comedians. Maybe Bill Burr. Also, to capture the soul of New York. Even at one time, maybe Anthony Cumia. The problem is, that wheelhouse. To get guys in like their forties maybe. Rudd was a good idea, but then, I didn’t really care for the kids.
Ghostbusters just a term should be up there with exorcists. There are always going to be ghost stories. A good executive would hunt those down and make them.
As is, neither one has appeal to me and both have kind of gone the way of Star Wars and Marvel. Stale for now.
Last thing, and unrelated to all this, but Terminator made me think of it, but Think Tank by Matt Hawkins and Top Cow comics would be a great adaptation for Netflix, Amazon, Apple or someone smart. Has the source material and the relevancy.