The closest Hollywood has to a giant game of (spectral) snakes-and-ladders, Ghostbusters 3 is the project that will neither go away nor come to fruition. Instead, like Vigo the Carpathian in his portrait, it’s mired in a strange limbo now reinforced by rumours that Phil Lord and Chris Miller won’t be Janosz-ing it into life on the big screen after all.
The pair are a current golden duo in Hollywood with a string of surprisingly terrific films – Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie – behind them in their careers to date. The rumour that they were in talks to grab the new Ghostbusters project, nurtured for long and with such cussedness by Dan Aykroyd, made a lot of sense: here was another tricky-looking project that might just have been brought to life by their funny, irreverent and self-referential touch.
Seemingly, however, they have bigger and less risky fish to fry. Ghostbusters 3 seemed to be mostly downside for a pair who are in demand across Tinseltown, and there’s unlikely to be any shortage of options for them.
Where this leaves the third dose of parapsychology remains to be seen. Perhaps they could ask whoever directed this to have a go?