Daily Inspiration Quote by Ivan Reitman

Reitman is doing that very Hollywood thing: reframing a technical limitation as a creative itch he’s finally allowed to scratch. The line looks like a mild production note about CGI, but the intent is more personal and strategic. He’s telegraphing evolution without disowning the past. Fifteen years is long enough to sound patient, even principled; “never really worked seriously in CGI” suggests restraint, not ignorance. He wants credit for choosing the old-school route when it mattered and for embracing new tools only when they serve his instincts.

The subtext is a quiet reckoning with what Ghostbusters became in cultural memory. That film’s effects are beloved partly because they’re tactile, imperfect, and funny in a way that’s inseparable from the era’s practical craftsmanship. By saying “the kinds of things that I was not able to do,” Reitman isn’t just talking about bigger explosions or cleaner composites. He’s pointing to a filmmaker’s perennial frustration: the gap between what you can imagine and what the budget, technology, and timetable will let you put on screen. CGI becomes a promise of expanded grammar, a way to stage gags, creatures, and scale without the physical bottlenecks of puppetry and optical work.

Context matters here: by the time legacy sequels and franchise revivals roll around, audiences demand both nostalgia and escalation. Reitman’s sentence is a small pitch for that balancing act: honoring Ghostbusters as a practical-effects classic while justifying why a return can’t simply replicate 1984.