The Ghostbusters franchise has endured a difficult few years, to put it lightly. From start to finish, Paul Feig’s 2016 reboot was mercilessly bashed by rage-fueled online trolls, and ultimately ended up under-performing at the box office and losing a lot of money for Sony, who had been banking so heavily on the movie’s success that they created an entire production company named Ghost Corps specifically to oversee the expansion of the Ghostbusters brand.
As for Ghostbusters 3, the official follow-up to the 1984 original and its sequel, the project remained stuck in development hell for decades, enduring a number of false starts until it turned out that the key to getting the movie made was about keeping it in the family. Jason Reitman, son of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II director Ivan, is set to co-write and direct the currently-titled Ghostbusters 2020, and is keen on bringing back many of the original cast members.
While the Feig reboot drafted in Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts to play different characters in brief cameos, Reitman’s Ghostbusters is hoping to convince all five, and possibly even the long-retired Rick Moranis, to reprise their roles in the upcoming sequel.
So far, only Weaver has officially confirmed her involvement, but in a recent post on celebrity app Cameo, Hudson also revealed that he would be returning as Winston Zeddemore, which isn’t much of a surprise given it had been in the works for months.
“We’re shooting the new Ghostbusters right now, coming out next summer, so I’m hoping that you’ll enjoy it as much as the other movies that we’ve done. I know that I’m having a blast doing it.”
As is the case with any Ghostbusters-related project, convincing Bill Murray to play Peter Venkman again will present the biggest obstacle, with the actor famously not having either an agent or even a cellphone. Ghostbusters 2020 does boast a promising cast of newcomers, though, including youngsters McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard alongside Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon, and is currently shooting with a release date set for next July. Stay tuned for more.
