I’ve read some really interesting things just now about both Ghostbusters 3 and Ghostbusters: The Video Game. I wanted to bring some things to light that might have been missed, which I feel are worth repeating, as well as highlighting:

Even [Bill] Murray returned – not with a hatful of diva demands, but wanting an assurance that Winston Zeddemore, the underwritten black character from the movies, would be elevated to full status.

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Sony has done it again, and made me happy that I have never owned a Playstation. In short, just so that everything is clear:

In NTSC regions such as the United States, Atari is handling distribution of the game, and it WILL be released on time on ALL consoles on June 16th.

In PAL regions such as the United Kingdom, Sony is handling distribution of the game and ONLY releasing it on PS3, PS2 and PSP on June 19th, and Wii, DS and 360 in Fall 2009.

Sony has a history of bad moves like this. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis have commented on the upcoming Ghostbusters 3 script that is in the works, and in the process revealed some new plot points as well as new Ghostbusting tools that will be at their disposal. I am assuming this is in addition to the classic and iconic Proton Pack, which wasn’t mentioned, but most definitely will be a part of it.

Aykroyd explains: “There will be a whole new generation that has to be trained, and that whole new generation will be led by an individual who you’ll all love when you meet him but I’m not going to tell you anything yet.”

This is really interesting and I wonder who it could possibly be. The first time that I read this, I took it to mean that the person training the Ghostbuster Cadets was who he was referring to. But reading it again, it seems that he means a new leader for the new group of primary Ghostbusters.

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It’s about time that Bill Murray said more than, well nothing, about Ghostbusters. Up until the last month or so, Murray hasn’t really said anything with regard to Ghostbusters, at all. But since recording dialog for the video game, and the writers being hired, Murray seems to have a lot to say.

“I think it’d be funny to have a girl Ghostbuster. We don’t have a girl Ghostbuster. I mean, they say like, ‘What if you passed it to Chris Rock?’ And I go, ‘Well, I dunno. Is Chris Rock gonna save us?’ You know, I guess. He’s funny.”

He adds, “I just think there’s some funny girls I’d love to see be Ghostbusters.”

Just to be clear, one site I read went well beyond what I thought of, when reading this. The route that I went was more along the lines of Tina Fey. The only real problem is that there isn’t a girl that I can think of, at the moment, that would realistically play a Ghostbuster. One person that came to mind, however, is Janeane Garofalo. She tends to be negatively sarcastic though, and no Ghostbuster was mean-spirited in the films, which I think is what helps make it work.

“We didn’t have a lot of special effects in it. There were just a couple. It was just the funny characters in that world, and I like that movie because of it. The first movie had like 60 plate shots. The second movie had like hundreds. Those guys got their hands on the script early, and it was GONE. It went away. It was hard to wrangle because it was tied all around the effects without the story or the characters coming first. So, they are hard movies to write, and Dan really caught it with that first one.”

That’s absolutely correct. Dan Aykroyd seemed to catch lightning in a bottle. Having a third Ghostbusters film in this day will mean that it’ll have some pretty great special effects. But keep it to a minimum, be smart with the effects and don’t do things just to do them. Story and characters need to be taken care of before any effects shots are considered. In doing this, the effects can support the story, not the other way around.

Thank you, Bill Murray, for re-instilling hope of a great new Ghostbusters film actually seeing the light of day. I’ll leave you with this hilarious quote:

“The characters are fun to do. We did the video game this summer and it was fun to do it again. I found myself walking down fifth avenue singing the song. People were like ‘wow that actor is really full of himself.’”

This will be the first in a series of articles about Ghostbusters. You’ll soon see why.

I grew up with Ghostbusters. The first film was released in theatres when I was 3 years old. I saw Ghostbusters II in theatres and have been looking forward to the possibility of a third film ever since.

In recent years, there have been rumors of a third film, but it would continuously fall apart.

Then the video game was announced, and Dan Aykroyd got involved. The game company handed him a 300 page script, and he worked in parts of the script he had written for what was supposed to be the third film in the series.

Not only that, but all of the original Ghostbusters cast (save for Rick Moranis) came back to supply voices to their characters in the game. Talk about a dream come true. Although it’s not the movie that I wanted, it’s the video game that I had always dreamed of.

Over the course of the last week, there have been glimmers of hope, as writers were rumored to be attached to the project. Not only that, but it’s a couple of very good writers that I think could do a pretty fair job of it.

This morning, the Chicago Tribune posted an e-mail from Harold Ramis (Egon Spengler in the films), and here’s what it says:

“yes, columbia is developing a script for GB3 with my year one writing partners, gene stupnitsky and lee eisenberg. judd apatow is co-producing year one and has made several other films for sony, so of course the studio is hoping to tap into some of the same acting talent. aykroyd, ivan reitman and i are consulting at this point, and according to dan, bill murray is willing to be involved on some level. he did record his dialogue for the new ghostbusters video game, as did danny and i, and ernie hudson. the concept is that the old ghostbusters would appear in the film in some mentor capacity. not much else to say at this point. everyone is confident a decent script can be written and i guess we’ll take it from there.
best,
harold

Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky are now confirmed as writers on Ghostbusters III. They’ve also been writers on The Office over the last few years.

Hopefully they don’t take things out of the feel of the original films. But that’s what my next Ghostbusters related entry will be all about.