Well, now, here’s an interesting notion that I did not expect to come across today. There’s apparently a Kickstarter campaign circulating that has nothing to do with Zach Braff or James Franco trying to get their fans to fund their vanity projects! Young director Bradley Bjornstad is trying to get funding together to develop a documentary about Ghostbusters 2 entitled Ghostbusters 2: The Original Vision, as well as campaigning to get all the footage from the original film from Sony.
OK, so this seems like a long-shot, but let’s look at the idea. Bjornstad wants to make a documentary about the somewhat notorious pre-production process that resulted in a massive rewrite of Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd’s original script, and left a lot on the cutting room floor. But there’s a lot of footage still remaining from the original film, fleshing out some plot points and giving characters like Rick Moranis’s Louis Tully a bit more to do. Bjornstad wants to get the cast and crew back together for interviews, and obtain the unused footage from Sony to edit into a new cut of the film.
While it’s unlikely that Bjornstad will be able to make his goal this time around, there’s something to be said for the scope of his vision. Ghostbusters 2 has been unfairly maligned as an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the original and nothing more. It left a bad taste in Bill Murray’s mouth, for one, and is part of the reason that Murray has since declined to be part of anything to do with Ghostbusters. But if Sony is serious about doing Ghostbusters 3 – and we’re still not quite sure if they are – a step in the right direction might be to release the Ghostbusters 2 footage in a cohesive cut. While I can certainly see Dan Aykroyd and even Ramis coming on board for documentary, there’s little likelihood that Murray would have any interest.
You can check out one of Bjornstad’s Kickstarter promo videos below and let us know what you think about the whole idea in the comments.
