Earlier this week, entertainment blogger Nikki Finke published a story about Max Landis being hired to write the new draft of Ghostbusters III, which Landis quickly debunked on Twitter, denying any involvement. Max Landis, whose father John Landis often collaborated with fellow ‘80s comedy kingpins/Ghostbusters people Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ivan Reitman, proceeded to lay out his ideas on Twitter for what he would hypothetically do with Ghostbusters on Twitter and it actually sounds kind of cool, unlike most Ghostbusters III concepts. Here’s what he had to say (via /Film):
My full movie concerns several new teams (focusing on one), grown from the Ghostbusters Franchise which is now global (and going bankrupt). Ghostbusters have become a parody of themselves, there are barely twelve ghosts caught a year. People have forgotten what happened in NYC. Egon passed away, Venkman lives on an island, Winston retired rich. Only Ray Stantz is left in charge, and he’s a terrible business man. In an effort to bring back business, an obsessed team whose station has been shut down attempts to summon a minor ghost…Mistake. Gozer.It’s up to our hero team to stop the bad team, reunite the fractured franchises, and save our dimension from a very pissed off demigod. It’s all very meta (creatively bankrupt Ghostbusters, no one wants the new team, the bad team are slick Michael Bay-versions of the GBs)…But you keep the action, comedy, and emotion sincere. Witty, bluecollar guys who are the last people you’d want saving the world. And I think the teams would be by modern-comedy clique; a Parks/Rec team, a Rogen/Franco team, a Kroll/Key/Peele team… I don’t know. I’ve thought a lot about Ghostbusters 3. But I’m kind of close on the Akroyd/Ramis side of things so it always felt weird. So happy to see this got some people pumped, unsurprised by the usual weird amount of hate. That’s enough from me about this, I think.
And here’s what Landis’s opening to the movie would be:
Haha a bunch of people asking what my Ghostbusters 3 pitch would’ve been. I never had a full one, just a skeleton I’ve goofed around with. My Ghostbusters 3 began in the 1920s with Ivo Shandor murdering a gluttonous associate to protect his cult after he has a moral objection. Shandor tells the overweight man that nothing can stop the coming of Gozer; first, the gate will open in 1984, then again twenty years later. The fat man, who now has all the details of Shandor’s plans, threatens to go to the police, and Shandor poisons him.It’s scary, but… As Shandor escapes, we see that we’re in the Sedgewick Hotel, and that the guy we just saw die……Is Slimer.Cue theme. Show title.