This Is Why the All-Female Ghostbusters Didn’t Work (And It’s Not the Reason You Think)

On paper, likely some time in 2013, the idea of an all-female Ghostbusters was sure to be a home run. The original fab four made up of Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson) didn’t only become stars because of the original Ghostbusters‘ success in 1984, they launched one of the most beloved franchises in recent pop culture history. Ghostbusters was followed by Ghostbusters II in 1989, Ray Parker Jr.’s theme song is a Halloween playlist staple, and most of the Western world knows what the no-ghost sign means.

On the other hand, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call was one of 2016’s most controversial films. It had a respectable showing at the box office, raking in upwards of $229 million worldwide, but it didn’t turn a profit against its bloated $144 million budget. (A good rule of thumb in the film business is to account for PR and marketing budgets, a film needs to make twice its budget to be considered a hit.) Feedback was split — the film received a 79% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences gave it a pitiful 49%. But like Reitman’s original Ghostbusters film in ’84, it had all the makings of a smash hit: a legendary comedy director (Paul Feig) and all-star cast of funny ladies Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. So why didn’t the movie work?

Answer the Call Needed to Call Back to the Original Ghostbusters Movies

On the surface, it’s easy to say “because they were girls.” Plenty of internet trolls cited the reason during the run-up to the film’s release. However, Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which debuted five years later in 2021, had two female protagonists in Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Callie (Carrie Coon). Afterlife not only grossed a healthy $204 million against its $75 million budget, it also scored a whopping 94% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s also easy to say Reitman had a leg up when making Afterlife, given that he’s the son of the original director. However, the elder Reitman Ivan produced both Ghostbusters: Answer the Call and Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

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Ghostbusters: Answer the Call didn’t work because of “lady Ghostbusters,” it didn’t work because it lacked any connective tissue to the movies from the ’80s. Sure, there are always going to be trolls and folks who hate women, but in a media landscape where moviegoers will actually sit through the credits for a bonus scene, Feig’s fatal flaw was insisting that Answer the Call be a “hard reboot.” For a director as lauded as Paul Feig, whose resume boasts Bridesmaids, some of the best-ever episodes of The Office, and Freaks and Geeks, one could understand a desire to put their own stamp on a franchise like Ghostbusters. However, by 2016, we were nearly a decade into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and trained by Kevin Feige to search for Easter eggs in every frame of a franchise film and theorize all the possible connections.

Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife Balanced Girl Power and Fan Service

While the original living Ghostbusters do make cameos in Feig’s Answer the Call, they’re brief and neither Murray, Aykroyd, nor Hudson play their iconic characters in the film. It almost would have been better if they hadn’t appeared at all — the trio’s presence teasing the tie-ins that could have been and then failing to deliver. In contrast, Reitman’s Afterlife is a love letter to the original Ghostbusters films. It follows Spengler’s daughter and grandchildren, who stumble upon his old proton pack. Even though the character Callie doesn’t utter her surname until the final moments of the film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is painstakingly crafted to pay homage to the movies that came before it while continuing the story for a new generation and providing us new characters to dress up as for Halloween. Reitman did give us the fan service everyone craved, though, with a glorious climax that included Murray, Aykroyd, and Hudson suited up as the original Ghostbusters, along with a deeply emotional appearance by a ghostly Spengler.

Feig’s Ghostbusters: Answer the Call isn’t completely irredeemable. The four leads are comedic geniuses after all, and they entertain us on a kooky, spooker caper. Chris Hemsworth gave a revelatory comedic performance as Kevin, the female Ghostbusters’ delightfully ditzy secretary. But at the end of the day, Answer the Call didn’t get a sequel; Afterlife did. And given that both films feature female protagonists, one has to believe that it was the lack of a shared universe that allowed Answer the Call to “flop,” while Afterlife soared.