The future of the Ghostbusters franchise is currently in Jason Reitman's hands, with work underway on a new film that will introduce new characters while calling back to the original two 1980s movies. But according to Dan Aykroyd, who co-wrote and starred in those films and has been the main Ghostbusters cheerleader through the years, he has plans beyond that, including a prequel project.
Talking in Toronto during a promotional stop for his Crystal Head vodka, Aykroyd was naturally asked about his Ghostbusters plans and the current movie.
"[Original director] Ivan Reitman’s son Jason has written a beautiful script, I can’t say too much about it but it’s going to get made and hopefully there’ll be some familiar faces," he says, before addressing the issue of the 2016 reboot. "But I don’t want to discount the work that the girls did with Paul Feig. I kind of got mad, but I realized I should have blamed myself as a producer, the costs were out of control, I should have been watching as a producer a little more, but you don’t dispute with your director. The job that Kate (McKinnon), Kristen (Wiig), Leslie (Jones) and Melissa (McCarthy) did, and indeed Paul did on that movie was superior, or superb. We would have done another one but, again, the cost overruns prevented the studio from looking at it and doing another."
Reitman's film, he reports, will have a smaller budget with the hope being that it can spark new other movies. "It’s so different from even the first and second (film)... This just takes it to a new generation and a new direction that is so warm, heartfelt and indeed, quite scary when you confront some of the issues that are being discussed.
While letting slip that there are ideas in play for at least one or two other concepts (likely hingeing on the success of Reitman's film), he's most excited by the idea of a prequel. "I’ve written Ghostbusters High, where they meet in New Jersey in 1969 and we’re looking to do that as probably a glorified feature or pilot within the next maybe five years... And it would lead to a television project and I thought of him immediately for that. It’s on [Reitman]'s desk but that’s years away from the current project. But it’s a neat idea for a prequel. Imagine casting the three characters as teenagers!"
Neat idea or not, the one issue with the prequel might be explaining how they shoehorn in supernatural concepts. Because part of the 1984 original's story was Ray Stanz and Egon Spengler (Peter Venkman mostly used his scientific "research" to score dates) obsessing over actual paranormal contact. Perhaps they'll just have to have a lot of near-misses...
For more from Aykroyd, head to the 660 News site. Reitman's currently untitled GB film is scheduled for release on 10 July next year.
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