Ghostbusters 3

The long-rumored third film in the Ghostbusters franchise is currently in development at Sony Pictures. It is being written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who are co-executive producers and writers on the US version of "The Office", with input from Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman.

The plot, as stated by Aykroyd in several interviews, involves the original Ghostbusters team training a group of younger Ghostbusters. Aykroyd has suggested the trainees will include both men and women, and that the primary trainee is someone special (although he declined to reveal who it was).

Aykroyd has also mentioned new Ghostbusting equipment, including a psychotron [a misnomer?], accelerators, and a device that allows the user to flip from dimension to dimension called the neuron splitter.History of UpdatesA constant source of on-again, off-again rumors, Ghostbusters 3 has been in "development hell" since at least 1997, when Ramis and Aykroyd were working on a concept now known as "Hellbent". The same premise of mixing the original cast with trainees taking over was in place even in "Hellbent", and it was rumored to have been written with Chris Farley in mind. Later, Ben Stiller was suggested as a replacement, and Will Smith, Chris Rock, and Conan O'Brien were also rumored, among others.

The question of whether Bill Murray was willing to return was also pertinent, as he had made his disappointing experience on Ghostbusters II fairly well known, and long-standing rifts between Murray and Ramis remained unaddressed. Eventually, word was that Murray had agreed to appear, but only if his character died and came back as a ghost. The film ultimately came close enough to development to appear as a finished credit in Dan Aykroyd's filmography on a handful of Universal DVDs, including 1941, the original "Collector's Edition" Blues Brothers DVD and Blues Brothers 2000.

In 1999, Aykroyd revealed that the screenplay (which was described by IGN as being "too technical", with a new team of Ghostbusters that were not clearly delineated and lacking in conflict or personality) was budgeted by Columbia at around $150 million, which at the time represented a prohibitively expensive investment for the studio. Aykroyd asked to shop the script to other studios, but Sony refused to license the franchise rights to another company, and the project was considered dead.

In 2005, while promoting The Ice Harvest, Harold Ramis explained more about the "Hellbent" screenplay to In Focus, describing how the characters would have ended up in an alternate version of New York that exists simultaneously with the real world. "But it’s like a film shutter — it’s the darkness between the 24 frames. So we blink alternately with this other reality, which is Hell. So all the Ghostbusters would need to do [to go to Hell] is take themselves “out of phase” one beat. And we create a device to do it, and it’s in a warehouse in Brooklyn. And when we step out of the chamber, it looks just like New York — but it’s Hell. Everything’s gridlocked — no cars are moving, no vehicles are moving, and all the drivers are swearing at each other in different foreign languages. It’s all the worst things about modern urban life, just magnified. And Heaven was across the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey. The Ghostbusters had to make this journey from Lower Manhattan to the George Washington Bridge." Ramis also reiterated their interest in using Stiller and Farley. It seems as if two versions may have existed: one in which the group is mourning Venkman's death and another with the character's regular level of participation.