'Bad CGI' and 'Ghostbusters' Figure Into Three Trailers We've Had Our Eye On

By Jen Maravegias | Film | November 10, 2023 |

By Jen Maravegias | Film | November 10, 2023 |

I appreciate Sony bringing The Ghostbusters back to New York City where they belong with some of the original cast members. And I love that Patton Oswald is involved in this project because that just feels right. But I don’t know how I feel about this whole “death chill” thing. Every sequel means raising the stakes, and eventually, you’re going to run out of road. Maybe it’s time to pull back on the Ghostbusters IP, folks. I’m not sure this looks good. Although I am sure I’m going to see it anyway. Yes, I know I’m part of the problem. I’m a child of the ’80s. What do you want from me?

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is directed by Gil Kenan (Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Monster House, 2015’s Poltergeist) and produced by Jason Reitman. The movie stars Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Kumail Nanjiani. Patton Oswalt, Celeste O’Connor, Logan Kim, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts.

There’s no theatrical release date yet. I can’t help but wonder when this movie got made because it went from “Hey, we’re making a sequel to Afterlife” to “Here’s the sequel to Afterlife” pretty quickly and kind of mysteriously. But I’m sure it’s fine.

Netflix is inundating us with trailers and promos for their slate of 2024 releases because it’s “Geeked Week,” which is their version of upfronts. Gird your loins. They went big with the trailer for the new live-action reimagining of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The bar is set low as far as expectations go for a live-action Avatar thanks to M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 adaptation. Despite Dev Patel, Aasif Mandvi, and John Noble’s best intentions, it never hit right. So, theoretically, there’s nowhere to go but up for this Netflix series. Well, maybe some things are best left to animation. (See also Ghostbusters?)

The cast of this Avatar: The Last Airbender series includes Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, George Takei, Randall Duk Kim, Danny Pudi, A. Martinez, Daniel Dae Kim, and Gordon Cormier as Aang. It will premiere on Netflix sometime next year.

I was fully prepared to make fun of Amazon Prime’s Christmas-themed offering, Candy Cane Lane, while also eulogizing Eddie Murphy’s career (again). Still, I’m mostly sad because Tracee Ellis Ross deserves better than this, even if no one else in the cast does.

Candy Cane Lane hits Prime Video on December 1st.

Today’s lagniappe is a movie someone brought to my attention that I just cannot pass up. It will go down in the annals of terrible movie history as somehow being worse than all of the Sharknado movies combined, even though it seems to be promising some light T&A. At least the folks at Full Moon Features are fully self-aware and have just come right out with it by naming this movie Bad CGI Gator. Enjoy.