Phil Lord and Chris Miller are eyed to sit behind the lens for the third 'Ghostbusters' film to replace Ivan Reitman.
- Mar 21, 2014
AceShowbiz - Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the duo who made "21 Jump Street" and "The Lego Movie", are in negotiations to direct "Ghostbusters 3", according to Nikki Finke. The news came after Ivan Reitman, who directed the first two films, decided not to return to the helming seat.
Reitman previously told Deadline, "A lot of things happened in the last few months, the most significant of which was the passing of Harold [Ramis], who was a very good friend who was extraordinarily influential in my career. We did five movies together including both Ghostbusters."
He then spilled the process of convincing Bill Murray to reprise his role. "The first was done by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, and me, Harold and Dan helped them on it," he said. "It was a really good script, but then it became clear that Bill really didn't want to do another Ghostbusters and that it was literally impossible to find him to speak to for the year or two we tried to get it going."
"When Bill finally...well, he never actually said no, but he never said yes, so there was no way to make that film. We decided to start over again, and I started working with Etan Cohen, with Dan lending a helping hand. Harold got sick about three years ago, and we kept hoping he would get better. I kept pushing forward on the Etan Cohen and we now have a draft that is very good, that the studio is very excited about."
"It's a version of Ghostbusters that has the originals in a very minor role," he added. "When I came back from Harold's funeral, it was really moving and it made me think about a lot of things. I'd just finished directing 'Draft Day', which I'm really happy with and proud of. Working on a film that is smaller and more dramatic was so much fun and satisfying. I just finally met with Amy and Doug Belgrad when I got back."
"I said I'd been thinking about it for weeks, that I'd rather just produce this Ghostbusters. I told them I thought I could help but let's find a really good director and make it with him. So that's what we've agreed will happen. I didn't want all kinds of speculation about what happened with me, that is the real story."
"Ghostbusters 3" eyes an early 2015 start. The script reportedly gets minor tweak so that the project can move forward without Ramis who died on February 24 at his home in Chicago. He passed away from complications arising from vasculitis. He was 69.
