Bill Murray and Ghostbusters (2016)

Alright, I've made this post numerous times in the comment threads on various facebook statuses all summer, and finally I thought, "I should probably just write a brief article that I can just link to instead of typing it out over and over again."

In case you haven't heard, there's a new Ghostbusters movie opening in the US on July 15th, co-written by Katie Dippold and director Paul Feig, starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. To promote it, several core cast members of the original Ghostbusters -- Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts -- joined the new cast on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to talk about the movie.

When asked about his long-standing reluctance to participate in a new Ghostbusters movie, Murray first praised the cast, then offered a pretty positive personal opinion about the finished film:

"When you see the film, and you'll delight in the film, it sort of rumbles along in the beginning, and you go, 'Oh God, are they going to pull this thing off?' And they are...no, believe me, no, I feel like a stepfather to the whole thing, you know? But there is just no quit in these girls. I've worked with Melissa before, and a little bit with Kris, and a little bit...but this is a tough movie to pull off, because it's a big concept, there's a lot on the plate, there's a lot of expectation, and Danny and I, and Annie, and Ernie were just screaming, cheering, like we were at a sporting event, at the end of it."

Shortly before Ghostbusters (2016) went into production, Sony was, of course, hit by a disastrous hacking scandal that caused thousands of internal emails sent to and from various executives, producers, directors, and actors to be leaked to the internet. Among them was an email about the question of taking legal action against Bill Murray over a new Ghostbusters movie. Although I'm not super happy about linking to an email obtained illegally, it is part of the foundation that this article is based on, so here it is.

Although there are four emails in the chain, the important one is the first one, written by David Steinberg, head of Sony's legal department: "In order to more fully evaluate our position if Bill Murray again declines to engage on 'Ghostbusters', AG requested that we identify 'aggressive' litigation counsel with whom we can consult to evaluate our alternatives and strategize."

Those who have been against the Ghostbusters remake from the beginning are citing this email as evidence that Sony essentially sued Murray into not only appearing in Ghostbusters (2016), but also endorsing it.

UPDATE (6/27/2016): A redditor asserted that I hadn't properly locaded all of the emails, so I went back to the database, and just to be sure, searched "Bill Murray" without Steinberg's name. It returned 12 pages of emails, most of which were news stories from RSS feeds (as well as several relating to Murray's participation in Cameron Crowe's Aloha). I found exactly two more emails that were mildly relevant: one of the lawyers, saying "thanks for thinking of me," (which openly indicates there would be further correspondence if Sony decided to take any legal action), and a forwarding of a quote by Murray praising the "female Ghostbusters" concept from Tom Rothman to Amy Pascal, with no further commentary provided by Rothman.

First of all, the email in question doesn't even support this line of thinking -- it's an email discussing the possibility of hiring a lawyer, although nothing ever comes of it. A search of the Wikileaks database for any other emails Steinberg wrote about Ghostbusters or Murray turns up nothing. More importantly, though: Steinberg isn't talking about Ghostbusters (2016), he's talking about the aborted Ghostbusters: Alive Again.

UPDATE (7/5/2016): In encountering people who continue to push this rumor, "Sony executives" come up frequently. In addition to David Steinberg, the other people in the email chain are Leonard Venger (President of Litigation for Sony Pictures Entertainment), and Leah Weil and Daniel Yankelevits, both general counsel for Sony. No general film production executives (namely, Amy Pascal) are involved in the single relevant email chain, nor the second brief email chain cited above (just Venger and Weil again, as well as the lawyer in question, Scott A. Edelman).

When Bill Murray agreed to do Ghostbusters II in 1988, he was more interested in working with his friends Reitman, Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis again than he was in making a sequel to Ghostbusters. He had just come off of Scrooged, an experience he reportedly hated, because the script by his friend Mitch Glazer had been toned down from a pitch-black satire and turned into more of a special effects comedy (in the vein of Ghostbusters). Murray was willing to return, but the prospect of making a Ghostbusters sequel at all sounded like more of a commercial venture than an artistic one. To help preserve the sanctity of the series, the four men negotiated a crazy clause: no future Ghostbusters movies could be made without the approval of Reitman, Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis, and Reitman had to be offered the first chance to direct. (Should this Vulture article not convince you for some reason, Reitman himself explained the deal on the Kevin and Bean radio show on Wednesday, June 8th, which you can find on this page.)

UPDATE (6/28/16): One point that I ought to have clarified, in case it's not clear: Murray's need to sign off on the project did not mandate any participation in it. Even if Murray had zero interest in being involved, in front of or behind the camera, his approval was still necessary.

When Steinberg mentioned litigating Murray in 2013, all that was under discussion was how to obtain either Murray's approval of Alive Again or Murray waiving his need to sign off on the project. Furthermore (not that it matters as much, given many of the people who spread this rumor would've vastly preferred a Ghostbusters 3), it's not that Murray actually disliked the Alive Again pitch, it's that he was simply impossible to get ahold of in the first place. While I'm debunking rumors, there was also a rumor that Murray shredded a draft and sent the pieces back to Aykroyd, which Aykroyd and Murray denied, the latter on the Howard Stern show, where he mentioned a draft on his desk he just never got around to reading...in other words, "declining to engage."

In February 2014, Harold Ramis passed away. One month later, and four months after the Steinberg email, Ivan Reitman officially passed on the job directing the new Ghostbusters movie, opting to produce it instead. In April, Reitman courted 21 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller for the job, but they eventually declined. In October 2014, nearly an entire year after the Steinberg email, Feig was announced as co-writer of Ghostbusters, and the project officially became a reboot instead of a sequel.

In case that isn't clear: the email people claim relates to Ghostbusters (2016) was sent at least six months before the project was even concieved (probably more, given Feig met with Reitman to discuss a sequel, declined it, then met with then-Sony chief Amy Pascal to explain why he turned it down, and then hit upon the idea of a reboot).

Despite this wealth of evidence indicating otherwise, I'm sure the notion that Murray was somehow badgered into making the movie will persist, even though such a scenario plainly makes no sense. Bill Murray successfully spent 25 years avoiding making a third Ghostbusters movie, and as a rights holder, he had all the leverage. 

Any situation in which Sony somehow managed to twist an entirely non-existent hold over Murray to their advantage and subsequently pressured him into appearing in the new movie not only requires some wild imagination (for what legal reason, on a purely theoretical level, would a court determine he was required to make any movie he hadn't already signed onto or agreed to be involved in?), but also lacks any evidence to support it (despite widespread misinterpretation of what Steinberg's email means, at least it exists -- not one email, interview, or scrap of evidence exists for the coercion theory). Conversely, if one argues that Sony always had that power, that begs the obvious question as to why they wouldn't have just forced Murray to make Ghostbusters: Alive Again when Harold Ramis was still around. 

Ironically, Murray said in an interview with Vulture that he agreed to appear in Ghostbusters (2016) because he was concerned about this exact scenario: "I started to feel like if I didn’t do this movie, maybe somebody would write a bad review or something, thinking there was some sort of disapproval [on my part]." (Yeah, any legal coercion would cover this too, but that's the kind of convenient catch-all that conspiracy theories like this rely on.)

Conspiracy theories also fly in the face of Murray's iconic pop culture persona: a man who shuns Hollywood blockbusters to make smaller films on his own terms, a man without an agent or manager, someone who many filmmakers aren't even sure will actually appear on set for their first day of shooting.

UPDATE (7/15/2017): Just to add to this post a little more, some of the focus has spread to tension between Ivan Reitman and Paul Feig in the emails, which is an angle that definitely has a bit more substance to it. Feig wanted the 2016 film to be set in its own universe. Reitman initially agreed, but as Sony worked toward a deal for Feig and Reitman, Reitman had second thoughts. However, the last emails about this debate in the leaks can be found here: Feig and Reitman have a positive meeting. Feig and Reitman both walk away happy, and Pascal is overjoyed by the enthusiasm Reitman shows for the film as a result. It's possible that Reitman ended up being less satisfied with the working relationship between himself and Feig later on, but the leaks end before that happens, so there is no proof of it. In the end, Sony established Ghost Corps on their lot, which was clearly out of deference to Reitman and his plans for the franchise, both with and without Feig. (It should also be noted that art rarely benefits from a backseat driver. Fans can debate whether or not Feig should've been in the driver's seat to begin with, but to say Reitman should've had more power than Feig on Feig's film -- which Reitman agreed to make -- is a classic recipe for disaster.)

It's possible that Ghostbusters (2016) will be a disappointing movie, one which people will say they knew would stink from the start. However, even if that turns out to be the case, the chances that Bill Murray felt or feels the same way and was secretly forced to say otherwise are...definitely very slim.

UPDATE (7/14/2016): Just in case Reitman's viewpoint on the whole situation wasn't completely clear, he gave a fantastic interview to Vulture in which he not only reiterated the information about their contract, but specifically elaborated on the idea that Murray might've just been disingenuous. Again, not something anyone who truly believes the catch-all of them playing coy or bound by contracts is going to be swayed by, but worth a read.

Critical Thinking: Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

Critical Thinking is a column where I review something I've just watched (usually something I like). No other reason. It doesn't really need a name but I gave it one anyway, since it's different from Cheap Thrills, and I hear things on blogs should have names.

On June 4th, the Katherine Heigl/Ashton Kutcher film Killers was inflicted upon us. Heigl plays the anti-woman's woman, i.e. a chipper, moronic, blonde beauty who can't do anything remotely masculine and needs men to rescue her from her own incompetence. Her mundane, career-focused, flighty existence is interrupted by the appearance of Ashton Kutcher. I reviewed Marley & Me for DVDTalk, and the first sight of Eric Dane, who looks like this, playing the role of an underpaid newspaper columnist, made me laugh out loud. Kutcher is supposedly a badass spy in Killers, which basically inspires the same reaction except with full-body nausea instead of laughter. Three weeks later, June finished up with the opening of Knight and Day, in which Tom Cruise plays the spy and Cameron Diaz plays the blonde (25% as ditzy, 75% as shrieky). I had high hopes, but it was a misfire in my book (you can read my whole review here).

Most people would point to Mr. & Mrs. Smith and True Lies as obvious recommendations for an alternative to these films, and these two examples are undoubtedly more inspired by those movies than the one I'm reviewing, but Mr. & Mrs. Smith isn't all that good, and True Lies -- easily the best of the four -- still gets terribly sidetracked by Bill Paxton's character, and is only barely more progressive when it comes to Jamie Lee Curtis' character than Killers (at least Curtis' performance appears to be intentional slapstick comedy, like a "Saturday Night Live" caricature).

No, my pick is the popular but still underrated Grosse Pointe Blank. John Cusack plays Martin Blank, a casual hitman who ends up in his hometown to do a job on the same weekend of his 10-year high school reunion. For most of those ten years, he's had a recurring nightmare about his choice to abandon his girlfriend Debi (Minnie Driver), and the weekend offers Martin a once-in-a-lifetime chance to track her down and make amends.

Re-watching the film with friends this weekend, I think the key to Grosse Pointe Blank's success is that, unlike the other films in question, there's more going on here than the central conceit of putting romance and bullets in the same movie. In the relatively simple paragraph above, I've outlined not one, not two, but all three of the movie's storylines: Martin returns home after a decade away for the reunion, Martin reunites with Debi for the first time after his vanishing act, and Martin the hitman starts looking for a way out. Like a well-oiled machine, all three of these stories work in tandem with each other while remaining loose enough to switch in and out of center stage as the movie needs them. I was bored during the first twenty or thirty minutes of Knight and Day because the trailers completely sum up the Cruise character and concept in thirty seconds. There are side notes about Diaz's character fixing her father's GTO and the wedding her sister is having, but the movie doesn't try to flesh these out into parallels or even brief tangents to the story. Comparatively, there's more than enough room in Blank for Martin to go on a drive with his old friend Paul Spericki (Jeremy Piven) or visit his childhood home without these scenes feeling like a distraction from more important things.

Director George Armitage has an odd career. After directing four films in the '70s, he vanished for a decade, reappearing in 1990 as the writer/director of one project and the writer of another. Passion projects, maybe. Then, he took another 6-year hiatus before making Blank. Afterwards, he didn't work until 2004's The Big Bounce, and has since been laying low, other than a "special thanks" on a 2010 movie called Joy Division. Having seen a couple of his '70s efforts recently, he doesn't appear to have much of a personal vision, but he still seems like he's more than an assembly-line guy. Even if he didn't respond to the material in a personal way, one gets the impression he was invested creatively, keeping things basic but not boring, engaging with his fellow cast and crew. There are a couple clever little shots, like a quick pull back to reveal a banner that Paul is leaping for, but Armitage's main contribution is probably the one of the whole film. This is a story about a violent hitman, but it never seems that gruesome, despite going all-out with an R-rating and at least one reasonably bloody death. If Grosse Pointe Blank were made today, it's hard to imagine the romantic and comedic lead of a film being allowed to do anything as intimately violent as stabbing a man with a pen for fear of losing the audience's sympathy, yet there's no sense that Armitage has to work to keep our relationship with Martin alive through the entire incident.

Another aspect of that light tone is the sexy chemistry between Cusack and Driver. Cusack is basically his usual self, but Driver brings plenty of little touches to the equation that make their relationship believable. In many movies like this, Debi would practically be a side character in comparison to Martin, but Driver fleshes her out with enough pathos and neuroses that she feels like his equal, having her own decade of uncertainty after he disappeared without a trace. Martin brings out the playful side of Debi, but this time around she's got her guard up.

The film is filled with a host of side characters, and it's nice how the picture manages to fit all of them in without going all over the map. Aside from Piven's Paul, Joan Cusack is Martin's assistant, who deals with the customers and answers the phones, Hank Azaria and K. Todd Freeman play two government agents looking to blot out Blank if they see him doing any misdeeds, Alan Arkin has several scenes as Martin's stressed-out psychologist, Benny Urquidez is a hitman looking to get revenge on Blank for the death of a prized dog, and Dan Aykroyd plays the movie's villain, a fellow assassin named Grocer who wants Blank to join his union of hired killers. There's also a whole host of characters at the eventual reunion, including Jenna Elfman as a woman who saw the other side, and Michael Cudlitz -- a scene-stealer if there ever was one -- as coke-snorting BMW salesman Bob Destepello. All of these people feel like they're cut from the same comedic cloth as the main characters, which is almost miraculous given how broad some of them are allowed to be. As a lifetime Ghostbusters fan, it hurts me to say that if any of them are a weak link, it might actually be Aykroyd, whose insistently cheery schtick toes the waters of "cartoonish", but I don't quite have a problem with it.

The third act leans on a tiny bit of script convenience, Azaria and Freeman are kind of written off, and the movie stops a touch abruptly, but these are minor nitpicks. The movie has more than enough goodwill to coast by then, and the ending is no cop-out, giving us one of the few "armchair psychology" epiphanies that actually feels organic and believable, allowing for a resolution that is satisfying instead of just relieving. Being a shootout, it lacks the intimacy of the film's high points, but the characters are intact, and it packs a nice punch. Grosse Pointe Blank is a great romance and a solid action movie featuring an entire cast's worth of well-written, well-performed characters, in a setting (the reunion) with some universal comedic appeal, and it accomplishes all it sets out to with enough ease to make you wonder: why exactly is this kind of movie so hard to make?

I was sure that 2007 was the year for Blank. The movie takes place at a 10-year high school reunion, so a 10th Anniversary DVD with an anamorphic transfer is a given, right? The year came and went, and even through to today, the only thing that's changed is that fans can now pick up the same old letterboxed transfer with a useless Digital Copy disc. Until Buena Vista opts to issue the film on Blu-Ray, I suggest people track down the 2-Movie Collectionwith High Fidelity, another great Cusack picture. There's also the film War, Inc., which reunites John, Joan and Dan in a worlds-apart scenario with a very similar tone. A few interviews hint that War, Inc. may have been written as a Grosse Pointe Blank sequel, but Disney wouldn't license the rights. On the other hand, I haven't seen it, so I can't vouch for it.

[Grosse Pointe Blank at IMDb]