He was a good sport enough to spoof himself and the film in 2009's "Zombieland" (which you can see below) and at the 2010 Spike TV Scream Awards, but enough is apparently enough. It's official: Bill Murray won't reprise his role as Peter Venkman in "Ghostbusters 3," according to Dan Aykroyd himself. "No, I can tell you he won't be involved," Aykroyd said after being asked about Murray's participation for what has to be the umpteenth time.
"It's sad but we're passing it on to a new generation," Aykroyd further explained. " 'Ghostbusters 3' can be a successful movie without Bill. My preference would be to have him involved but at this point he doesn't seem to be coming and we have to move on. It's time to make the third one."
The writing was on the wall for months, but optimistic fanboys always looked for any glimmer of hope there was, often positing that Murray was "softening" his position on the matter (here's one such example). We're just happy we can finally put the answer to what was pretty damn obvious all along to bed.
As Aykroyd attests, the film has hired a new writer, "Men In Black 3" scribe Etan Cohen, and they'll essentially be rebooting/reviving the franchise by passing it on to a younger generation of actors. "We're working on it to make it just right to satisfy our fans. I'm confident we'll be in production in the next year." Note, the actor has been saying "next year" for over two years now. We'll believe it when we see it. [Metro]