On Friday, we reported on a Variety story saying that Ghostbusters 3 was in development at at Columbia Pictures. Now, we have an extra bit of confirmation from one of the original Ghostbusters himself–Harold Ramis.
Ramis e-mailed the Chicago Tribune to confirm the story. This is what he said:
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
This shows how quickly things change in Hollywood. Less than a month ago, Paul Rudd shot down rumors of an Apatow-involved Ghostbusters 3 in an interview with MTV.
MTV: Have you heard about the rumor recently that you’d star in a new “Ghostbusters” movie along with Seth Rogen, Steve Carell and Romany Malco?
Rudd: I’ve heard this rumor. A couple of days ago somebody asked me that, and that was the first I’d heard about it. It’s incredibly flattering to be in a rumor. I would do it in a second with those guys. But do you think it’s a good idea to redo “Ghostbusters”? It’s a classic.
MTV: Even if it’s a rumor, it’s a nice quartet of actors.
Rudd: [Sarcastically] I am really excited about it.
MTV: We’ve green-lit it right here.
Rudd: Excellent. When do we start shooting?
MTV: Are you going to do the Bill Murray role or Dan Aykroyd’s, or perhaps Rick Moranis?
Rudd: I’d like to be Sigourney Weaver. Or maybe we can mix in the sequel and I can do a Peter MacNicol thing. I remember thinking, “That’s the same guy from ‘Sophie’s Choice.’ ” It seemed so weird.
Of course, it seems that it is now a sequel/passing of the guard movie, so maybe Rudd will be more responsive to it. I would pay good money to see Paul Rudd interact with Bill Murray. Heck, for a Ghostbusters sequel with the blessing of the original cast and writers (Ramis and Dan Ackroyd wrote the original) and produced by Judd Apatow? WHo am I kidding, I’m there already!
