So people will stop being confused or wondering why over and over:
This is the reason Feig rebooted instead of continuing from the originals
Sony and Aykroyd tried for decades to get Ghostbusters 3 made. Murray was the hold out, only wanted to do it if "the script was good enough" or he died in the first 10-15 minutes. Writer after writer tried to make a good version of Ghostbusters 3 over twenty years.
Then along came Feig and he was offered the job. He sat down and thought about it and tried to come up with a way to continue the story, but he couldn't think of a compelling idea that HE wanted to tell in the pre-established world. He did not want to write a story where everyone already knew about ghosts. He did not want to write a story where a new team was just given an Ecto-1 and four proton packs. He wanted to write a story about discovery, about humanity discovering ghosts for the first time, about this group of people coming together to figure out a way to stop them.
That is something that cannot be done in a continuation. There is absolutely no reason to waste time on a new team developing new tech when the old tech exists and if anything they just update it. There is no point to have the entire world somehow completely forget that ghosts exist for a second time so that a new team can discover them.
That is why. That is the entire reason from his own lips. He wanted, basically, to do his own take on their origin story.
It doesn't matter if you think it's right or wrong, doesn't matter if it winds up being a good or bad idea, that is the explanation. We've know it for almost a year now and he just reconfirmed it last week. They did try to hire other writers, they did try to do countless drafts of a third movie, they did try to get around the rights from the originals with the actors, nothing was good enough, so they wiped the slate clean. Dan Aykroyd himself could not make a "good enough" third movie, and nobody else could either, so Feig started it over to tell the story of discovery he wanted to.
There it is, you can all lay your minds to rest now and stop wondering. That is why Feig chose to reboot it.
Anybody who truly loves Ghostbusters and enjoys comics should read the IDW ghostbusters comics written by Burnham they really are fantastic and carry on from the original movies perfectly.
You can even buy it on kindle as volumes or on paperback, well worth it IMO and will scratch the itch better than this movie ever would.
I will never let an opportunity to praise the IDW pass. You can actually buy really nice hardcover editions of both stories, "
Total Containment" and "
Mass Hysteria" on Amazon, and they're filled with all kinds of artwork and interviews and stuff. The series was actually ended after the final "Mass Hysteria" issue, then they did a crossover with TMNT, but apparently it's back again for a third run.