Ghostbusters 3 is a film that’s been talked about in fandom for years, way before development was actually started on it. Lately it’s been in and out of development, revived and shelved repeatedly. But the news is out that Ivan Reitman is now slated to begin production of ‘Ghostbusters 3’ next summer. Are we actually going to get a movie out of this? If you give Deadline a close reading, you might have caught a one line mention about the ‘Ghostbusters’ sequel. The article had indicated that Paramount was putting the Ivan Reitman directed Kevin Costner film ‘Draft Day’ on hold due to the schedules of both Costner and Reitman. From the article:
“Paramount chose not to make it in the small window that Reitman has before he is expected to finally get the long-gestating Ghostbusters reboot in front of the cameras next summer for Sony Pictures (sans Bill Murray).”
It looks like they’re going to try and shoe-horn the thing into the summer production schedule, but if they’re going to shoot next summer, the film will probably get a 2014 release date. Shooting usually takes about four months on a feature (even an effects-laden one as this is likely to be), and then the visual effects take another eight to ten months. That would put a release sometime around Thanksgiving for 2014.
You can see from this poster we found that there’s an official web site: http://ghostbusters3.com. However, if you actually go there, it just redirects to the Sony Pictures main page. So they’ve parked the domain, and this could still all end up in a big manilla folder in somebody’s drawer someplace.
Etan Coen (‘Men in Black III,’ ‘Tropic Thunder’) wrote the latest draft of the script which was originally written by Lee Eisnenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (the duo who wrote ‘Bad Teacher). Dan Aykroyd has stated that the story would pivot on handing the ghost busting to a new crew: “My character, Ray, is now blind in one eye and can’t drive the Cadillac. He’s got a bad knee and can’t carry the packs… Egon is too large to get into the harness. We need young blood and that’s the promise. We’re gonna hand it to a new generation.”
It’s a little too early to have heard anything about casting decisions, but we should be hearing something soon. What is known casting wise is that not only will Aykroyd be back to reprise his role, Harold Ramis will be joining him, along with Ernie Hudson - and from the look of this poster we found, apparently Ben Stiller as well. Unfortunately, Bill Murray still has no plans to appear in the film, and he’s repeatedly said over the years that he wouldn’t and has been trying to distance himself from the franchise.
So now we wait, and see how things progress. For now, they’re working on the second draft of the script, and that’s a good sign – it means the whole thing has enough interest to warrant that work being done. A lot can happen between now and any hypothetical release date.
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