When the news first broke that an all-female Ghostbusters reboot was in the works that would completely disregard the previous movies and establish a brand-new continuity without the iconic members of the original team, there was, not too surprisingly, a lot of backlash.
While some of the responses were just flat out misogynistic rants, the biggest issue for a lot of fans was that they weren't getting a direct sequel with Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore (Egon Spengler actor Harold Ramis had passed by this stage).
Even so, many people were willing to give the movie a chance... until they saw it.
Ghostbusters 2016 was far from an unmitigated disaster, but a solid first act soon gave way to tired gags, pointless cameos, and a ridiculous ending that really just served as a retread of the original. Reviews were decent all the same (74% on Rotten Tomatoes), and there is a perception that the film's box office underperformance was largely down to the intensely negative reception that greeted it before it even hit theaters.
While speaking to The Guardian, director Paul Feig reflected on the movie's release.
"Bill [Murray] had publicly said he didn’t want to do another Ghostbusters at that point," Feig responded when asked why he decided to make a movie without the original characters. "Harold Ramis had died. Dan [Aykroyd] and Ernie [Hudson] were there, but half the team felt weird. It had been 30 years and Bill and the gang were so iconic; I didn’t want to do anything that hurt the original movies."
"The political climate of the time was really weird, with Hillary Clinton running for office in 2016," he went on. "There were a lot of dudes looking for a fight. When I was getting piled on, on Twitter, I’d go back and see who they were. So many were Trump supporters. Then Trump came out against us. He was like: 'They’re remaking Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. You can’t do that. And now they’re making Ghostbusters with only women. What’s going on?' and got all upset. Everybody went [frick]ing cannibal. It turned the movie into a political statement, as if to say: “If you’re pro-women, you’re going to go see this. If you’re not, then …” I didn’t think it mattered at all that the main characters were women, but people brought a lot of baggage."
Whether you happen to agree with Feig's perspective or not, it's difficult to argue that the movie did have the odds stacked against it from the start.
A direct sequel to Ghostbusters 2, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, was released in 2021 and was more successful despite worse reviews. Recent follow-up Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire also performed well at the box office, but has the lowest RT score of the franchise with 44%.