Ivan Reitman Didn’t Understand Why People Wanted So Many ‘Ghostbusters’ Movies

It’s hard to believe that there was once a time when the Ghostbusters franchise consisted of just a single movie. Since the original Ghostbusters hit theaters in 1984, it’s spawned a near-countless number of sequels, comic books, TV cartoons and, of course, branded citrus juices. 

Oh, and theme-park attractions, like the one in which Beetlejuice uses magic to force the Ghostbusters to dance to “I’m Too Sexy” and Smash Mouth’s “All-Star.”

Oddly enough, one person who didn’t understand why the Ghostbusters franchise needed to be a franchise was the guy who literally made Ghostbusters.

As reported by Ghostbustersnews.com, Jason Reitman, son of Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, recently guested on comedian Neal Brennan’s podcast Blocks. While discussing his work on Ghostbusters: Afterlife (which he confessed was the “least funny Ghostbusters movie”), Jason Reitman made a surprising admission about his father. “My dad never understood sequels. My dad was like, ‘I don’t know why people want to return to this stuff.’” 

Which could explain why the original Ghostbusters was a classic, and Ghostbusters II ended with the a goo-drenched Statue of Liberty being piloted by a Nintendo controller.

Reitman went on to explain that his dad wasn’t so sure of his nostalgia-heavy approach to the reboot. “When I wrote Afterlife, and you meet this girl, and she, like, goes out to Oklahoma, and she finds a proton pack, and my dad’s like, ‘This is great.’ And then the dogs showed up, which is the same thing as ’84, and he’s like, ‘Why Gozer? Why do we need to go back?’ He’s just like, ‘Can I just have a new story?’”

And the elder Reitman’s disinterest in revisiting the past would explain why there weren’t more Ghostbusters sequels in the ‘90s. “I think it’s one of the reasons the Ghostbusters franchise didn’t flourish consistently over decades,” Reitman theorized. “My dad, after Ghostbusters, was like, ‘I’m going to go do Twins. I don’t care.’ He made Ghostbusters II, and then there’s nothing for years.“

Both Reitmans have a point. Ghostbusters: Afterlife was a better movie when it felt new and different, before ultimately falling into a beat-for-beat recreation of the original movie, and bringing back a villain who we really didn’t need to see ever again. A lot of fans were probably also asking: “Can I just have a new story?”

But the reboot’s lack of imagination aside, the Ghostbusters franchise did warrant expansion beyond that first movie. And there’s no better evidence of this than the Real Ghostbusters Saturday morning cartoon, which was chock-full of new stories, fresh ideas and imaginative villains that weren’t just named “Gozer.”

Also, to its credit, not a single scene of the animated series was set entirely inside of a Walmart.