Just one month after Sony finally made a smart move and put an end to their increasingly erratic plans for the Spider-Man movie franchise, it looks like they are now preparing to run another movie franchise into the ground. After years of rumours and indecision, Sony announced last year that they would be rebooting Ghostbusters with an all-female cast. Although the news didn’t sit well with some fans of the original films, most people seemed to agree that this was at least a new take on the material and really the only option considering that Bill Murray was still refusing to take part. Now this week they have announced that there is actually a second Ghostbusters movie in the works, this one with a more traditional male line-up. Why would they want to undermine their female Ghostbusters film before it even starts production? Who knows, but apparently Channing Tatum is attached to produce and potentially star in this second Ghostbusters film.

According to Deadline, Joe and Anthony Russo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) will direct a new Ghostbusters film from a script written by Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3). This seems like another attempt to build a cinematic universe using the Marvel template, so it’s no surprise that they’ve got some Marvel alumni heading it up. Channing Tatum is expected to star while Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd will produce through their new Ghostcorps production company. Reitman had this to say about the project:

“We want to expand the Ghostbusters universe in ways that will include different films, TV shows, merchandise, all things that are part of modern filmed entertainment. This is a branded entertainment, a scary supernatural premise mixed with comedy. Paul Feig’s film will be the first version of that, shooting in June to come out in July 2016. He’s got four of the funniest women in the world, and there will be other surprises to come. The second film has a wonderful idea that builds on that. Drew will start writing and the hope is to be ready for the Russo Brothers’ next window next summer to shoot, with the movie coming out the following year. It’s just the beginning of what I hope will be a lot of wonderful movies… My primary focus will be to build the Ghostbusters into the universe it always promised it might become. The original film is beloved, as is the cast, and we hope to create films we will continue to love.”

You may recall that Channing Tatum was also rumoured to be involved in another weird Sony project, a proposed 21 Jump Street / Men in Black crossover. It’s unclear if that is still happening (I am guessing not) but this seems almost equally as bizarre to me. I still don’t really understand what they’re doing here other than creating a backup plan in case the female Ghostbusters movie fails. What do you think, is this good news? Would you like to see a whole universe of interconnected Ghostbusters movies or is this going too far?