The beloved eighties franchise that made every kid want a proton pack, or a lunchbox with a proton pack stickered on it, is steadily gearing up for its much-anticipated return. After the 1989 sequel didn’t quite recapture audience’s imaginations, Ghostbusters 3 talk has been quietly rumbling away for… well, 25 years. The last twelve months has been a hotbed of rumours and early developmental tidbits. Still, nothing major until now.
Speaking this weekend in London during a promo tour, the original co-creator of the first New York spook-comedy let it be known that the third venture isn’t gonna be a one trick pony. In an impassioned speech, Dan Aykroyd compared the rebooting to the Ecto-1 – a bit frazzled and in need of some severe pimping:
“It’s up on blocks, it needs new electronics, new everything. That’s what we have to do. The whole vehicle of Ghostbusters has to be rebuilt. That’s the ambitious thinking that’s going on now. Taking on the model of Marvel where we take all of the elements that are in this movie and we put them out there as different ideas.”
What exactly could that mean? Well, there’s the untangling of a story into separate films to stretch out a narrative timeline across many years and many movies. It’s difficult now to imagine how that could be appropriated onscreen into a successful franchise. The original movie stemmed from a script, and wasn’t based on a comic book or novel. That’s not to say it requires a hefty source to draw from, but trends have shown that this is most often the case.
Seems Aykroyd’s got it figured out, anyway, by ensuring that the third part won’t be:
“…just another movie or another TV show, but what’s the totality of it? The whole mythology from the beginning of their lives, the end of their lives. Ghostbusters at nine years old, Ghostbusters in high school.”
This is a unique direction to take, and ultimately begs the question: what about the female-led reboot? Well, he didn’t dismiss it entirely, saying that the prospect of an all-woman Ghostbustin’ team would likely sprout up for the third or fourth film. “We need to write it,” he said. A throwaway tidbit that’s indicative of the sheer breadth of the world-building that Sony are in the process of nurturing.
All in all, quite a bold statement and a new direction for the franchise.
Ghostbusters 3 is set to shoot sometime in 2015. Are you excited they’re turning it into a spooky Marvel-esque ‘verse?
