Dan Aykroyd Speaks Out On GHOSTBUSTERS 3 And GHOSTBUSTERS 4
We’ve been hoping for months on end for a possible GHOSTBUSTERS 3. And every few weeks, we get some new “news” on the subject, which always seems to lead to disappointment.
So with that, I give you a new interview with Dan Aykroyd, himself, on not just GHOSTBUSTERS 3, but GHOSTBUSTERS 4!
That’s right…in a new interview with Esquire that focused almost completely on the beloved film series, Aykroyd was asked if the third entry would follow the long-awaited plot of the Ghostbusters heading into Hell:
Man-hell-ttan, and the Ghostbusters in hell, would be so solid, but we gotta get maybe one or two made before that. But, oh, wow… I wrote that with Tom Davis, my writing partner, recently deceased, who wrote Coneheads with me and stuff on Saturday Night Live. There’s classic Tom Davis lines and funny stuff in there, really it’s probably the most humorous of all the Ghostbusters scripts that have generated in that last little while. But we’ll put the humor into this next one. It’s gotta be funny, or it’s not worth doing. It can be scary, it can be Ghostbusters, it can be the new franchise, the new people, but if it’s not funny … Wait a minute, it started as a comedy. Let’s make sure there’s laughs and no laugh unturned and that we really make that our priority, to make it funny and exciting, but mainly funny.
Aykroyd has always been the main voice of this new entry, seemingly bringing us the reassurance that something was going to happen, and actually goes as far as saying that if Sony had made Gene Stupinsky and Lee Eisenberg’s script, they would have easily had a “nine figure return”. (The newest incarnation is currently being written by MEN IN BLACK 3 scribe Etan Cohen.)
So what is keeping the gang from getting back together? Besides Bill Murray (who, despite internet rumors, Aykroyd says is still not involved…although he has left room in the script to write him back in…), Aykroyd says that it’s all on the studio now, and he’s not giving them a lot of time to move on the franchise, which could easily move to another generation for a fourth chapter:
Now, this would add quite a bump to Sony’s bottom line, quite a bump. If they make this movie, in its current shape, they would be looking at a pretty hefty, nine-figure return. And so I’m hoping they get on to move it, but if they don’t, I have multiple trains. I’ve got tracks six, seven, and nine, and that’s four. I’ll be moving on to other things, as will Ivan, by the way. We can’t wait forever. And now’s the time to tell the picture company, and I’d say this quite publically, it’s time now to sit down and make this movie, or you will lose your main principals, and you won’t be able to make it without us, because we have rights, and now is time to make the movie…
So my question to you is this…after all the hassle and trials trying to get a GHOSTBUSTERS 3 made, do you even still want it? Could it possibly live up to the hype at this point? Or do you even care what happens just as long as you could see Ray, Egon, and Winston wearing a proton pack one last time?