Now that Sony is rushing to reassure men upset about the lack of male representation in the Ghostbusters franchise—except for, y’know, in the original movie, and the sequel, and the cartoon series, and the comic books—naturally, rumors have begun to spread about Sony’s master plan for the franchise. Reports originating from a story by Badass Digest’s Devin Faraci suggest that Sony is actually planning to follow through on Dan Akyroyd’s threats to create an entire shared cinematic universe based around the rich mythology of Bill Murray improvising his lines. (For what it’s worth, the report also says that Faraci’s sources at Sony are “baffled as to where [reports that the new movie will be all-male] came from.”)
The whole shared-universe thing isn’t such a shocker, not only because of Dan Akyroyd’s statements on the matter—Dan Akyroyd says a lot of things, after all—but because every intellectual property holder has MCU-level aspirations these days. As we reported yesterday, Brobusters (working title) star Channing Tatum’s real-life pal Chris Pratt may co-star in Ghostbusters’s return to male form after Paul Feig’s all-female movie, which, again, shouldn‘t come as a surprise considering Chris Pratt is supposed to star in approximately half the movies coming out in the next five years.
After that, the two teams will apparently commingle, Avengers-style, ignoring Spengler’s advice to never cross the streams. After that? Chaos. “I think the key here is that while it’s the Ghostbusters universe, not every movie has to be about people busting ghosts,” Faraci says, suggesting that just about anything funny with ghosts in it could very well be called a Ghostbusters movie now. So expect a series of prequels chronicling Venkman, Stantz, and Spengler’s college years, featuring a cameo from a pre-death Slimer as a Boss Hogg-type fat Southern colonel. We assume, anyway.