Director Ivan Reitman Addresses “Ghostbusters 3″ Rumors
There have been a lot of rumors abound about the proposed third installment in the "Ghostbusters" film franchise, several of which we've addressed on this site. The various stories, some of which actually came from Bill Murray, run the gauntlet of there being two versions of the movie, one if Bill Murray's in it and one without, Murray read the script and shredded it, Murray has refused to read any of the scripts, Murray only agreed to do the movie if they killed off his character, Murray's in most of the movie as a ghost haunting the firehouse, and other tales of Murray's reluctance to do another film. But this past weekend, while at a screening of the original "Ghost Busters" in Toronto, director Ivan Reitman addressed some of the rumors and clarified Murray's position with the film,
“Bill Murray has never actually read anything. He may have read ten pages at some point, but he’s never read a script, but he’s never been interested either, that part is true… it wasn’t Ghostbusters in particular, it’s just, he’s been carrying on his life in a different way, in terms of the kind of parts that he’s wanted to pursue.”
“I would love to work with him again and I hope that he could be in this film. He might be, he might not be, I really don’t know.”
“If we can find a way to make a film that’s somewhat as magical as this one (original Ghostbusters) finally turned out to be, then it’s worth making. If we can’t, we probably won’t do it.”
“We’ve had a couple of scripts that are quite good… that we just didn’t think quite had it… and one of them was particularly centric to Bill and we just couldn’t get him to read it. That one didn’t get made even though it was pretty damn good.”
“We’ve been thinking of alternatives and we’re actually making some real progress and we’ll see what happens. That’s the most honest answer I can give you.”
At this point its highly doubtful that Murray will come on board for another film, given his very vocal disappoitment of the 1989 sequel, "Ghostbusters 2". It has been long since said that Murray is a little eccentric and does things his own way, so "Ghostbusters 3" would have to be perfect in his mind to warrant his attention. Murray has however signed off his likeness rights for mechandising and lent his voice to the moderately successful game "Ghostbusters: The Video Game", so he's not completely against continuing with the franchise. The biggest thing I'm happy to hear is Reitman saying they won't do a third film unless they can make it as special as the original. I've loved this franchise for as long as I can remember, and I want to see a third film, but only if they can do it well and not just do it for a cash grab. Too many franchises are shoved back onto the big screen just because it will make money, and to do that here would just end up tarnishing a loved product.