Even the Ghostbusters can’t weather the storm of COVID-19.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which was filmed last summer in Calgary and small-town Alberta, is among the highly anticipated big-budget summer releases that have been pushed back to 2021. It was scheduled to hit theatres July 10 but has been rescheduled to March 5, 2021.
The move means Fort Macleod will have to cancel its planned sneak-peek premiere of the film, which was scheduled for early July at the Empress Theatre prior to the movie’s wide release and after red-carpet premieres in New York and Los Angeles, which have also presumably been cancelled.
The event was to be a fundraiser for the theatre. The crew of Ghostbusters: Afterlife shot in Fort Macleod, which stands in for small-town Oklahoma, for eight days over the summer.
Sue Keenan, chief administrative officer for the Town of Fort Macleod, said the news is disappointing but says the town plans to move its event to March 2021 as well.
“We’re still very much involved in having a huge event here as a fundraiser for the Empress,” she said. “We’re very much looking forward to it. It is very disappointing, because we could use some good news for a change and I think our residents could, too. But, unfortunately, with social distancing and isolation and all that, the decision was made in the best interest of everyone and we get that.”
Keenan said because the event will be held at the tail end of winter, it may look a little different than originally planned. Initially, the plan was to close off the town’s main street.
“We never know what the weather will be like so it might not be a street activity,” says Keenan. “It will probably be a gala event hosted at the community hall, followed by the special screening.”
The release date of other big Sony films — such as Moribus with Jared Leto and Tom Hanks’ Second World War film Greyhound — have also been delayed. Moribus is scheduled to hit theatres March 19, 2021, instead of July 31, while no new date has been set for Greyhound, which was to be released June 12.
While Sony did not release any statement about the changes, the altered release dates are likely “just insurance for the future,” wrote Anthony D’Alessandro of the online industry publication Deadline.
“Q1 and Q2 2021 will be in dire need of movies given their production delays, and what’s occurring here is Sony is filling those holes,” he wrote.
Helmed by Jason Reitman, the Oscar-nominated son of the original 1984 Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, the newest chapter of the franchise includes much of the original cast — Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver — reprising their original roles for cameos. New cast members include Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace and Carrie Coon.
The film also used local crews and vendors, and a number of locales throughout Alberta, including sound stages at the Calgary Film Centre. Alberta was chosen after Reitman scouted a number of locations, including Pennsylvania and New Mexico. The film, which wrapped in mid-October, was shot in Drumheller, Crossfield, Beiseker, at the Turner Valley Gas Plant, Dorothy and Fort Macleod. In a trailer released in December, Fort Macleod’s Empress Theatre is shown getting blasted with a proton pack.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the production of film and TV projects of all sizes throughout the world. In Calgary, filming of Season 2 of the Netflix zombie series Black Summer and Season 4 of Wynonna Earp have been put on hold.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
