When you’re promoting a reboot of a beloved property, it’s important to convey to audiences what exactly it is you’re doing. Are you remaking the original property? Are you continuing the story of the original? Is it a complete reboot that hits the reset button and goes in an all-new direction? This stuff’s important and, to many, the first trailer for Paul Feig’s GHOSTBUSTERS movie botched the delivery of any coherent message about what the movie was.

Those of us who read and report for sites like LRM know that the film is a total reboot, yet the trailer opened with a clear and specific reference to the events of the first GHOSTBUSTERS movie. That decision left one of the reboot’s stars more than a little stumped. The trailer, by the way, is the most disliked trailer in YouTube history.

Melissa McCarthy, who leads a cast that includes Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones recently spoke about the trailer on the Johnjay & Rich radio show, and she said she agreed that it was, at best, confusing. Here are her full remarks:

“It’s a reboot, not a remake. I know it’s weird that they say [in the trailer] ‘30 years ago,’ but in this movie it’s like the first one didn’t happen. It’s a great story but told totally differently. It’s the same thing of four unlikely heroes, it’s in New York City, ghosts are taking over. It’s the same classic story, but it’s not a ’30 years later.’ … Believe me, the question was asked. I think it’s very confusing.”

By now we all know that a film’s marketing department works somewhat independently from the production itself. They get all the clips, all the notes, and then try to create material that’ll hopefully make the movie sell- but they’re not part of the daily grind of actually making the movie. For a star like McCarthy it has to be frustrating to pour so much time and energy into a project, have it be scrutinized so thoroughly before anyone has seen a second of footage, and then to finally have a trailer come out…only to see it send the wrong message to the moviegoing public. 

Indeed, it’s a unique situation. It’s a reboot, yet it has the same music and same logo, so the overall branding is the same. It seems to be more of a CASINO ROYALE-style reboot in that sense, instead of a BATMAN BEGINS-style reboot. The folks marketing this thing are going to have to find a way to clearly, and effectively get the word out.

GHOSTBUSTERS comes out July 15.

SOURCE: Cinema Blend