2019 kicked off with the surprise announcement from Sony that they had a new Ghostbusters movie in active development. In a bid to steer the franchise back to its roots after the less-than-successful 2016 reboot, the upcoming film is set to follow on from the continuity of the first two outings. Plus, it’s going to be directed by Jason Reitman, son of original director Ivan Reitman.
As that sounds, the new Ghostbusters – what you might call Ghostbusters 3 – will likely have a lot of connections and tips of the hat to the two 1980s movies. In fact, while speaking on Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast, Reitman promised that his outing with the franchise will be a “love letter” to the films he grew up loving just as much as the franchise’s legion of fans.
“This is going to be a love letter to Ghostbusters. I love this franchise. I grew up watching it. I consider myself the first Ghostbusters fan. I was like seven years old when that movie came out and I love it. I want to make a movie for my fellow Ghostbusters fans.”
Reitman also opened up about how the production came together. The writer/director revealed that he handed in the first draft of the script late last year, expecting this to be the start of a long road to the screen. However, the studio surprised him by immediately fast-tracking the project.
“I wrote the film in secret with my writing partner Gil Kena. We wrote it over the last year while we were finishing up Frontrunner and we turned it in December. And I have to admit my presumption was it was going to be like any studio film that I had heard about where they do years of rewrites and they grind it into the ground and it never happens. I was fully prepared for this year to be a year of maybe taking a little time off and doing rewrites on Ghostbusters and instead, the studio read the first draft and said ‘yeah go make it.’”
That’s some pretty snappy work on Sony’s part. If Reitman and Kena completed their screenplay in December, that means the studio announced the project and gave us an awesome teaser trailer in under a month. And if you think this isn’t enough evidence that it’s really going to happen, bear in mind that character breakdowns have already hit the net, revealing that the next generation of Busters will be a bunch of teens.
Ghostbusters 3/4/The Ghostbusters/Ghostbusters Forever, whatever it’s called, is set to materialize on theater screens on July 10th, 2020, and as soon as we learn more about it, we’ll be sure to let you know.