Dan Aykroyd has given an update on the near-mythical Ghostbusters 3.

The new Ghostbusters flick has been stuck in so-called "development hell" for over a decade and Bill Murray has declined to reprise his key role as Dr Peter Venkman. Back in February (2013), Sony Pictures denied that it could be made as an animated picture instead.

Now Aykroyd has confirmed Ghostbusters 3 is still in the works, insisting the film's script is looking promising. "I feel re-encouraged, reinvigorated by the pages that I have seen. I know that we're expecting half of the screenplay to be completed very soon," he told ABC News. "It should be into production by the fall and be shooting by the new year. I won’t say anything, it's very exciting."

Aykroyd even gave a few geeky teasers regarding the film's premise, saying: "The Higgs boson and the particle theories, gluons and mesons - that really gives us a scientific base in terms of our fictional storytelling, to open up to another dimension and have something horrible come through."

Aykroyd and co-star Harold Ramis wrote the original 1984 Ghostbusters film and 1989's Ghostbusters II. However, the pair have apparently struggled to come up with a workable concept for the third movie and now Men In Black 3 writer Etan Cohen is believed to be drafting the script.

Rumor: Emma Stone and Jonah Hill offered roles in 'Ghostbusters 3'


(CBR) Is new life being breathed into "Ghostbusters 3"? If a pair of news stories collected by Collider are accurate, then the answer is a fairly emphatic “yes.”

First, the NBC affiliate in Cleveland, WKYC, reports that an unnamed Sony executive confirmed the city is being considered as a shooting location for the third installment of the franchise. On the subject, ComingSoon.net said WKYC added the film might begin shooting there next spring.

Meanwhile, SchmoesKnow reported a rumor that Jonah Hill and Emma Stone have been offered roles as Jeremy and Anna, although no description of those actual parts were given.

Dan Aykroyd, who co-wrote the original "Ghostbusters" and starred along with Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson, has been carrying the torch for a third film for years. Murray has reportedly declined involvement, but when Aykroyd talked to Larry King earlier this year, he said there is a place for his former co-start if he changes his mind. In that same interview, Aykroyd said the latest script revolves around researchers at Columbia accidentally discovering something that threatens our reality.

“We’re going to have to cast. We need four new Ghostbusters. We need four new Columbia students,” he said in May. “It’s based upon new research that’s being done in particle physics by the young men and women at Columbia University. Basically, there’s research being done that … I can say that the world or our dimension that we live in, our four planes of existence, length, height, width, and time, become threatened by some of the research that is being done. And Ghostbusters, new Ghostbusters have to come and solve the problem.”

Director Ivan Reitman and Ramis are still expected to return in some capacity for the new film, but all of that — and these rumors — are up in the air until something official gets announced.


Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/news/rumor-emm...P5howBxPbWg.99

'Ghostbusters III' Script to Be Reworked Following Harold Ramis' Death

Harold Ramis' death on Feb. 24 has left Hollywood's comedy community with a mammoth void, since the writer-director-actor touched the careers of everyone from Bill Murray to Judd Apatow to Jack Black. His passing also has left Sony scrambling to keep Ghostbusters III on track since Ramis, who died at age 69 due to complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, was to have made a cameo appearance in the film.

The sequel's director Ivan Reitman is scheduled to meet with Sony production brass in the coming days to assess how to move forward on the project that is in active development, according to sources. Ramis, who starred in the 1984 original and 1989 sequel alongside Murray and Dan Aykroyd, was poised to appear in a third outing in a cameo role -- like Murray and Aykroyd -- that set up a baton-passing to a trio of newcomers.

The script, written by The Office writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, will now need to be revamped.

"There will be some repercussions," says a project insider.

A studio source downplayed the impact on the project, however, insisting that Ramis was involved in Ghostbusters III only minimally. Ramis, who co-wrote the first two Ghostbusters, held a first-dollar gross stake in the third film along with Reitman, Aykroyd and Murray -- a position that will revert to his estate. But no deals have been inked yet, and there have been signs that the principals instead would take break-even cuts in order to get the film off the ground.

"He was always great to bounce something off of, and that will certainly be missed," the source says of Ramis. "But it won't affect the script."

Even before Ramis' death, the script had not progressed enough for the film to begin shooting in 2014. Now, the studio will have to adjust without an on-screen assist from Ramis' Dr. Egon Spengler.

The reticent Murray, who also worked with Ramis on such comedy classics as Meatballs, Stripes, Caddyshack and Groundhog Day as well as a National Lampoon show off-Broadway, offered a succinct good-bye to his former collaborator: "He earned his keep on this planet. God bless him."