Every other month or so, Dan Aykroyd will be out pitching his delicious Crystal Head Vodka or a new film in which he's making an appearance. And inevitably, someone will always ask him about Ghostbusters. "Tell us a story about making those films," or "What's going on with the third movie? Is it going to happen?" It's understandable, you have Dan Aykroyd the self-proclaimed heart of the Ghostbusters and a man responsible for so many memories from many of our childhoods sitting next to you. How could you resist?
Interestingly, each and every single time that he gives an answer, it spreads like wildfire. From the innocuous answer, "Well we're working on a script, maybe it'll happen" to more pessimistic views that, "it just doesn't look like it's in the cards anymore," his answers make headlines across the internet no matter what he says.
But the underlying message always unspoken, is that the on-going development hell of this film has been a story all its own.
In 1997, around the time that Sony and Bohbot Entertainment were launching a new string of syndicated animated programming dubbed "The BKN," Ghostbusters III chatter reached a fever pitch. It seemed that a new film starring Chris Farley, Chris Rock and possibly Adam Sandler (or Ben Stiller, depending on which rumors were believed) was just around the corner. Unfortunately, Farley passed away in December of 1997 and the film was put into a bit of a holding pattern.
Talks continued into the later days of the 1990s that the film would still be happening, items were just being retooled and rethought to change the direction of the Farley-centric film. But eventually around 2001, Aykroyd resigned himself to proclaim the development of the project dead. In Cinescape (thanks to the always amazing and meticulous Paul Rudoff for this archive) Aykroyd said, "it was tremendously liberating for me to go to the set of Bedazzled and say to Harold, 'Harold, we're not going to do this. I'm letting it go. I'm not going to persevere anymore. When I come to you next time it will be a whole new project.' And I went to each one of them and I said that, 'I'm never going to call you about this movie again.' So now we talk about other things."
And so that became the story for several years, it was the project that would always be looked back upon as having failed to launch for one reason or another.
Or was it?
As pre-production on Ghostbusters: The Video Game began at Terminal Reality around 2006, Aykroyd's enthusiasm for the third film was reinvigorated. Chatter began once again that the film was a possibility. And that chatter turned into a deafening roar when Bill Murray finished his voice recording on the game and seemingly enjoyed the process once again, having told David Letterman that he found himself on the streets of New York humming the Ghostbusters theme song.
