Who You Gonna Call? Ghostbusters, Apparently

Ghostbusters: Oh so ’80s. 

Hollywood’s continuing effort to not do anything that hasn’t been done before somehow or somewhere got a considerable boost today when Columbia Pictures announced that it plans to make a new Ghostbusters movie.

The re-emergence of the franchise had been rumored for a while, but now Variety attaches some names to the project: The Office” co-exec producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky are writing the script that is supposed to reunite original cast members Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson.

Well, that’s the intention–but are those original cast members in or are they out? Here’s some connections–Eisenberg and Stupnitsky wrote the upcoming Year One with Ramis, who also directed the comedy, which stars Jack Black and Michael Cera, amongst others. Ramis and Aykroyd wrote the original Ghostbusters and its sequel. So what we’re saying here is that key players from the past and future know each other and presumably are on good terms.

Plans for a third film were scuttled long ago in an argument over who got how many percentage points of the film’s potential gross. Now these actors might be willing to settle for something that works for them and the studio; most of them haven’t been in blockbuster territory for a while.

Plot details for the Eisenberg-Stupnitsky film are under wraps, of course. Supposedly no attempt at deals wtih cast members will be made until there’s a script in place.

I could live without another Ghostbusters film, some twenty-five years after the fact. It just feels like a kind of tired idea. I guess Eisenberg and Stupnitsky’s Office credentials should make me feel more confident in this being funny…trying to be optimistic…trying to be optimistic…nope, not working. Sigh.