Of all the stories that have aggravated me the most over the last two years it's been the ongoing ping pong match between Bill Murray and those championing Ghostbusters 3. Frustrating mainly because it's been obvious forever that Murray has zero interest in rejoining Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis, and all his old mates, but people keep looking for any chink in his armor. He turns up at an event in a Ghostbusters outfit, and of course that means he's involved. If he says anything other than an outright refusal, it's "leaving the door open". Nonsense. Those same folks willingly ignore his every other indication he'd never reprise his Peter Venkman role, like openly calling the scripts crap and tossing it in the shredder. Or how about when he said he'd only do it if Venkman was killed in the opening minutes? The proof has been there all along, yet diehard fans refused to see it.
Now we can finally put a nail in the coffin of all this silliness. While talking to the Telegraph, Akroyd opened up about his real thoughts on the project and the likelihood of it happening, with our without Murray.
Akroyd:"At this point it's in suspended animation. The studio, the director Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis feel there must be a way to do it, but Bill Murray will not do the movie."
"He doesn't want to be involved. He's got six kids, houses all over America. He golfs in these tournaments where they pay him to turn up and have a laugh. He's into this life and living it. I know we'd have a lot of fun [but] I can't be mad at him. He's a friend first, a colleague second. We have a deep personal relationship that transcends business and he doesn't want to know."
To me that sounds a little bitter, and completely ignoring the fact that Murray still makes the movies he really wants to, like his upcoming role as Franklin Rooselvelt in Hyde Park on Hudson, or in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. Clearly, he did not want to do Ghostbusters 3.
So what could a possible Ghostbusters film look like without Murray? It's long been speculated that the film would be a passing of the torch, so to speak, with a younger team coming aboard to help out the older guys. There was even a rumor that the Peter Venkman character might return as a ghost or something ridiculous like that. Or maybe just flat out replace Murray with somebody else. Would that even be a consideration?
Akroyd: "We're not going to do a movie that exploits the franchise. The script has to be perfect. I'm the cheerleader, but I'm only one voice in the matter. It's a surety that Bill Murray will not do the movie, however there is still interest from the studio."
Whether the studio has "interest" or not doesn't matter. Ghostbusters 3 is dead in the water without Murray. Ivan Reitman isn't a big name director anymore, and nobody under the age of 30 even knows what all the fuss is about. Murray deserves credit for sticking to his guns on this one.
