Once again, Dan Aykroyd has been given a microphone and once again, he is sounding off about the movie that will probably never happen, “Ghostbusters 3.” Last we heard, the $150 million movie was more or less going to sit on the shelf at Sony unless Bill Murray stopped being awesome and decided to read the script and then decided to actually make it. But he’s currently shooting “Hyde Park on Hudson” and would likely rather do anything other than play a faded version of the role that helped launch him to superstardom in a sequel arriving more than two decades after the fact. But hey, maybe he’ll pull a “Garfield” and do it regardless. Anyway, Aykroyd was recently on Dennis Miller Radio (via ComingSoon) and he begrudgingly admits that Murray is vital to this thing, while quickly adding that no one man makes a movie.
“Yes, we will be doing the movie and hopefully with Mr. Murray,” he says, “That is our hope. We have an excellent script. What we have to remember is that ‘Ghostbusters’ is bigger than any one component, although Billy was absolutely the lead and contributive to it in a massive way, as was the director and Harold [Ramis], myself and Sigourney [Weaver]. The concept is much larger than any individual role and the promise of ‘Ghostbusters 3’ is that we get to hand the equipment and the franchise down to new blood.”
And so what about that new blood? Aykroyd is famous for just throwing names around (he previously mentioned Anna Faris and Bill Hader but when we asked the latter about it, he read it on the internet like the rest of us) so here’s one more.
“I like this guy Matthew Gray Gubler from the ‘Criminal Minds‘ show,” he said. “But there’s going to be a casting. We’re going to see everyone that wants to do it. We’re going to need…three guys and a young woman.” If you don’t watch that terrible police procedural show then perhaps you might remember Gubler from his first screen role as Intern #1 (Nico) in Wes Anderson‘s “The Life Aquatic.” It’s a nice bit of dream casting, but we can’t imagine that Sony is gonna let Gubler have his first major role in a $150 million dollar movie, but hey, anything can happen and we suppose it does make for a possible ‘Zissou’ reunion with Murray ordering him around some more.
Anyway, the plot of this picture will find our aging Ghostbusters no longer fit for duty and recruiting a new school team to take over. “My character, Ray, is now blind in one eye and can’t drive the cadillac,” Aykroyd said. “He’s got a bad knee and can’t carry the packs… Egon is too large to get into the harness. We need young blood and that’s the promise. We’re gonna hand it to a new generation.”
All this to say, the movie is nowhere nearer to happening than it was at the beginning of the year, but damn, Aykroyd is keeping that flame alive. Will the Ecto-1 get taken out of the garage again? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.