In a recent video interview conducted with The Belfast Telegraph, Ghostbusters series star, co-writer, and producer Dan Aykroyd outlined his thoughts on the future of the supernatural comedy franchise about a team of scientists who make a business out of wrangling errant ghosts.
“My whole thinking on Ghostbusters now is it’s beyond just a sequel, a prequel, another movie, another TV show,” explained Aykroyd. “I’m thinking now, ‘What does the whole brand mean to Sony?’ ‘What’s Pixar and Star Wars mean to Disney?’ ‘What does Marvel mean to Fox?'”
“Everybody, all of us on the team there now, the executives, the creatives, myself, Ivan [Reitman], we’re thinking more in terms of what do we build this thing into in the next 10 years?” he added. “Just not another movie or another TV show, but what’s the totality of it? What’s the whole mythology from the beginning of their lives to the end of their lives? Ghostbusters at 9-years-old, Ghostbusters in high school.”
With The Heat director Paul Feig currently rumored as the top choice to direct an all-female team of Ghostbusters that will kick off a new chapter for the franchise, it would seem as if big changes are certainly afoot for the property — something that Aykroyd seemed to confirm.
“It’s like taking on the model of Marvel, that type of thing, where you take all the elements that were in these movies and you put them out there as different ideas, so we’ll see,” he said. “I think a third movie with females or a fourth movie with females is definitely a possibility. Again though, we need to write it.”
The current draft of the third film’s screenplay was penned by Bad Teacher and Year One writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, with Men In Black 3 scribe Etan Cohen also brought in to revise the script.
In describing the task of bringing back the Ghostbusters franchise, Aykroyd likened the series to the team’s iconic vehicle, the refurbished ambulance/hearse known as Ecto-1.
“I’ll draw this analogy, we’ve got the Ecto-1, okay? It’s sitting in the garage, it’s got the motor out of it, the transmission out of it, the paints gone, the wheels are gone, it’s up on blocks, it needs new brakes, new electronics, everything,” he explained. “That’s what we have to do. The whole vehicle of Ghostbusters has to be rebuilt so that’s more of the ambitious thinking that’s going on now than just thinking about another movie.”
