Now this is kind of interesting. According to Vulture, it seems that for the planned Ghostbusters 3, Sony wants to ditch the director of the first two movies, Ivan Reitman, in favour of a younger director, who would oversee the re-emergence of the franchise, with the old spook-hunting team handing the reins over to a fresh new crew.
Although this is the sort of thing Hollywood loves to do, thinking fresh young blood is more likely to score a hit than experience, the studio has a problem with their plan. Due to contracts signed in the 80s, stars Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Bill Murray, as well as director Ivan Reitman, all have the power of veto over any Ghostbusters sequel if they don’t like the direction the studio is taking. This means that while Reitman can’t force the studio to make the movie with him behind the camera, he can prevent them from doing it without him.
It seems at the moment things are at a bit of an impass. Reitman wants to make Ghostbusters 3 and can prevent the studio shooting it without him, Sony doesn’t want Reitman as they’d prefer a younger director (who they’d probably have more control over). Reitman could really do with the gig as he hasn’t had a hit in years, which is probably another reason why Sony don’t want him. Someone’s going to have to budge or Ghostbusters III will never get made.
One possibility is that Reitman will pass on returning to Ghostbusters as he’ll be busy on another film. He’s just signed up for a comedy called Friends With Benefits (originally titled Fuckbuddies), which will star Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman in what’s described as ‘an inverse Harry Met Sally,’ a sex comedy wherein two friends in a purely physical relationship begin to develop true romantic feelings for one another.
Sony had hoped that Reitman deciding to make this would make it easier to slide him out of Ghostbusters 3, but the director seems to think he can do both. Friends With Benefits would shoot soon and be in cinemas next January, while Ghostbusters would film later this year for a late 2011 release.
This is just one of the hurdles the Ghostbusters sequel has to jump before it can actually go into production, as the second draft of the script in due in May, and that’s got to be approved by the cast and the director, and of whome could veto it. Will the movie ever happen? Sony desperately hopes so as they want more big franchises, but the contracts signed in the 80s are making it far more difficult than it normally would be.