Seems making one for the fans pays off, a friend of mine whose judgement I trust saw it and liked it a lot.
It hasn't done fantastically - though there's Covid and I don't think it was released in China (there's a blanket ban on "ghosts" though I dare say they fast and loose with this when they want to), so it depends what you mean by payed off. It was a lot cheaper than most blockbusters, including the previous one, which was a wise move.
The previous one was also "for the fans" in that it was, more or less, a bear for beat remake of the first. The actors were female which caused some outrage amongst "fans" which unfortunately the studio decided to weaponize, making everything a lot worse.
The whole "for the fans" mentally nauseates, to be honest people identifying as "fans" of things is increasingly sickening. I'm not talking about people liking or loving things, if people enjoy things, good for them. I'm talking about people
defining themselves as fans of pop culture ephemera. For fuck's sake are people's lives so empty and are their souls so shallow that they must tribally identify with what are commercial products? Wearing these simultaneously as a badge of honour, a shield against the World and a weapon to attack it with?
It gets addressed in the video posted above and they point out that this new film is less for Ghostbusters, this new movie and those like it, is less for Ghostbusters "fans" and is more for people who love the idea of Ghostbusters fandom - grown men (sometimes women) fetishizing the toys and details. They even placed a ghost that was originally as toy in this. The tiny Staypufts nauseated me, "oh look there's a reference to the original but tiny and cute!" Baby Yoda, only worse.
If children enjoy this film then good, I wonder how many will see it and how many of those are dragged in by parents in their 30s to 50s because it's what they enjoyed when they were kids? Can't kids have they're own pointless crap to distract them from the numbing terror of existence, or must they inherit dad's bullshit?
I'm not arguing with you GNC, I just used your post as a jumping off point. I ultimately like, probably love the original and have some nostalgia for the sequel but the original was lightening in a bottle and clearly not replicable. I also hate this nostalgia baiting, reference heavy, pandering crap that modern mainstream cinema has become.