It’s pretty much impossible to talk about the new Ghostbusters movie. There are three types of people when it comes to this phenomenon:
- People genuinely excited to see this movie and will defend it vigorously
- People who have watched both trailers and have failed to laugh once
- People who feel their precious childhoods will be ruined because women are replacing men in the roles of Ghostbusters
Well, if there was ever a reason to have genuine disdain for the reboot/remake/whatever, The Players Tribune revealed that recently retired chucker Kobe Bryant will appear in a Ghostbusters commercial during Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night. It seems to really capture the essence of Kobe, as it features him sitting in an office with a black mamba photograph on the wall and “Mamba” written on the name patch of his Ghostbusters uniform.
As a marketing tool, using someone with Kobe’s past to promote a movie that stars women seems like a misstep. But he does have a lot of followers and fans on social media and scored a lot of points in basketball, so may as well pretend like he’s a great dude, right?
There’s no real way to know for sure what happens in this commercial, but it appears as though Kobe, who will play the role of Mamba, a super villain with a picture of a snake on his wall, is tired of the Ghostbusters busting ghosts in his city. He hates their teamwork and feels like the monstrous ghosts that simply won’t go away are misunderstood, so he dons a fake uniform and proceeds to use his proton pack to destroy the Ghostbusters.
“Ha ha!” the Kobe character says before looking into the camera. “If anyone is going to fire off reckless shots that leave people horrified, it will be me, Mamba, like I did in my final NBA game!”
Ghostbusters will be in theaters July 15.
