I Ain't Afraid of No Facts

So, the good news, if you're a fan of interdisciplinary genre film, is that Sony has attached two writers to a possible new Ghostbusters movie. 

The bad news, if you follow such things online, is that the piss-poor horror-film media can't get the story right to save its, um ... soul.

Hollywood Reporter, as usual, is the apparent ground zero for the accurate news. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and director Ivan Reitman, are "aware of" the project. The upshot of the production: Writer-producers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, of the U.S. incarnation of The Office, are attached to the film. It is meant to be a reboot, not necessarily a direct sequel, and it will focus on a new cast. 

Fangoria eschews some detail, but jives with Hollywood Reporter. This is a new cast. Not the familiar quartet. At least, nothing is promised in that regard.

Variety, in a show of journalistic hubris, decides that having some familiar names in the Sony news is cause for a little leap of logic. Scribe Michael Fleming's second graf just plops the change in facts down: "a film designed to bring back together the original cast." Fine,  just put it out there, no attribution other than his. And then he goes on. Why stop at a sip, when one can chug at the table? "The close proximity between the writers and original Ghostbuster Ramis is evidence that the ghost chasers have sparked to the idea of returning," he writes. Oh, really? 

And then Mania and Bloody-Disgusting run ape-shit all over the news. Why do any reporting yourselves? Just copy things in there, kids. 

MANIA: Writer Jarrod Sarafin whiffs from the start, telling readers that "the studio hopes of [sic] bringing back Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson for their title roles." No attribution is given for this claim (although we know now it's from Variety). His article also ends in media res, thanks to the apparently editor-less Mania setup, but perhaps that's best. Sarafin also calls this a Columbia Pictures project, while his headline declares it a Sony project. The fact is that Columbia is owned by Sony and Sony announced the development. Sarafin should choose one, or make some distinction in the body of the text. 

BLOODY-DISGUSTING: I like how they title their news brief, "Get the eff out ... 'Ghostbusters 3' Officially Announced." I actually do. That's funny and energetic. Granted, nobody at Sony "announced" the movie is greenlighted and in production; merely that some writers have been hired to work on a script. But the headline is plausibly deniable, and it's fun. But then they drop Fleming's opinion piece into the space provided. It's literally just a copy and paste. Why there's a yellow header that reiterates what's in the article is beyond me, but there it is, getting it wrong again. At least they tell us the source of the hooey at the bottom of the article. Mania just blasts Sarafin's primitive English as if he did a little reporting or something.