One of the greatest cosplay costumes ever was at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, where a married couple made great use of who they were to create something memorable. He was dressed as a Ghostbuster in a reasonably realistic costume complete with a proton pack that lit up, while she was dressed as the librarian ghost at the start of the film. What pushed the costume over the top was that the wife was in a wheelchair, and they had modified the chair to look like one of the ghost traps that was open, and she was being pulled into the trap.
Genius, right?
I wasn't surprised to see a ton of Ghostbusters outfits at Comic-Con this year. Sure, it's the 30th anniversary this summer, but I don't think that's why we saw so many costumes. The truth is that every year is a great year for Ghostbusters sightings. Box-office is certainly one way to quantify a film's success, but it's not the only way. I'm far more interested in how deeply something takes seed in pop culture. Do actual lines of dialogue make it into the popular lexicon? Do other movies rip this movie off? Were there sequels? Spin-offs? Merchandising?
In the case of “Ghostbusters,” any metric you want to use would still make it clear that this movie was a phenomenon that endures. There's a reason Sony keeps talking about a “Ghostbusters 3,” and it's because there is nothing else they own that tests higher in terms of audience awareness. It was five years between the first film and the second film, and then another 25 between that film and now, and while it might seem impossible for the studio to pick that franchise up now, with “Ghostbusters,” time doesn't seem to matter.
If they had been making “Ghostbusters” sequels this whole time, my guess is that they would have long since started opening field offices in other cities, spinning off new casts and taking full advantage of other locations and what kind of ghosts they might hold. To that end, the HitFix editorial team decided to imagine some of the Ghostbusters we've missed out on, people who might have suited up if things had gone another way.
You tell me… who would you have loved to see strap on a proton pack of their very own?
“Ghostbusters” is back in theaters this weekend for a very limited run.