This year the Ghostbusters franchise is going to make its long-awaited return with Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters 3 starting production in July. But what if someone told you that Peter Venkman, Raymond Stantz, and Egon Spengler actually met way before they started their business in New York City with Winston Zeddemore? Original Ghostbusters star and co-writer Dan Aykroyd recently revealed to The Canadian Press that he came up with the idea that the three eccentric parapsychologists had been fascinated with the supernatural since they were in high school.
“Although I’ve written Ghostbusters High, where they meet in New Jersey in 1969 and we’re looking to do that as probably a glorified feature or pilot within the next maybe five years,” he said. “And it would lead to a television project and I thought of [Reitman] immediately for that. It’s on his desk but that’s years away from the current project. But it’s a neat idea for a prequel. Imagine casting the three characters as teenagers!”
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Then Aykroyd took on 2016’s Ghostbusters by Paul Feig, revealing that the major problem with that movie was the costs.
“I kind of got mad, but I realized I should have blamed myself as a producer, the costs were out of control, I should have been watching as a producer a little more, but you don’t dispute with your director,”Aykroyd added. “You hire a director, you trust a director, you trust their vision. But the job that (stars) Kate (McKinnon), and Kristen (Wiig), and Leslie (Jones) and Melissa (McCarthy) did and indeed Paul did on that movie was superior, or superb. We would have done another one but, again, the cost overruns prevented the studio from looking at it and doing another ladies’ movie. Now we’re going to do it in a sensible way. Costs will be under control and it’ll be brought in for a sensible budget without waste and that’s what’s important now in getting it made.”
Given the fact that Aykroyd unsuccessfully pitched Ghostbusters 3 for years, do you think that Ghostbusters High prequel will ever be greenlit? Let us know in the comments section below.
