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From the outside looking in, 1995’s Casper is a very weird movie, and we’re talking about both what happens onscreen and the circumstances surrounding its failure as a franchise.
In terms of the latter, it’s a real head-scratcher that a sequel never happened despite director Brad Silberling’s supernatural favorite netting $288 million at the box office. What makes it even stranger is that it did give rise to a long-running saga that roped in an animated companion series, two live-action prequels, and more than its fair share of video games, but a second installment remained trapped in development hell.
It was on the cards for a while, though, with Simon Wells on deck to co-write and direct before it was abandoned altogether in the summer of 2000. On-camera, the array of cameos is nothing short of ridiculous for an inoffensive and lightweight family-friendly adventure, with everyone from Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood to Dan Aykroyd as Ghostbusters‘ Ray Stantz dropping by, while one from executive producer Steven Spielberg was left on the cutting room floor.
Even though it’s been almost 30 years since Casper first apparated in theaters to make a killing at the box office before failing to launch its own self-contained series of successors, the glow of nostalgia remains undimmed on Netflix. Per FlixPatrol, the streaming service has wisely rolled out the red carpet for the translucent title hero just in time for Halloween, and subscribers in the United States have responded in kind by launching it straight onto the Top 10.