As Dan Aykroyd explains it, there is as yet no script for Ghostbusters 3. There are writers, yes, and some (no doubt) very good intentions. Maybe even some good ideas. But no script. So anything you read, from the mentoring role of the original crew to the reappearance of Rick Moranis, is informed speculation at best.
But if you’re going to run with informed speculation, Aykroyd is one of the better-placed sources.
While talking to me and a few other reporters about the upcoming Ghostbusters: The Video Game (which Aykroyd still says he considers the third movie, but also that it is now a lead-in to the third movie…confusing!) the man who was Ray Stantz said quite a bit about the third film…or he seemed to be saying something about it.
The lead-in was a question about Sigourney Weaver declining to participate in the game, and Alyssa Milano’s sorta-replacement character.
“…and when we do the Ghostbusters 3 movie, hopefully, Sigourney will be in, I know. We’ll make that happen.” That ‘hopefully’ was in reference to making the movie, I believe, not to Weaver’s role in it. He followed up with, “but there’ll be a whole new generation that has to be trained. And that whole new generation will be led by an individual that you’ll all love when you meet him [there’s an obscuring cough on the tape here] but I’m not going to tell you now. There will be lots of cadets, boys and girls, who’ll be learning how to use the cyclotron, the accelerators, and the new stuff. The nuon splitter, the inter-planary interceptor, all these great tools they’re going to have to flip from dimension to dimension. Anyway. Game number two, maybe. “
I didn’t get a chance to ask follow-up questions, so I’m not sure where the line between movie and game(s) really is. (I’m also not certain about the spelling of those last two devices mentioned.)
Does this mean that the third movie will have a whole bunch of
young Ghostbusters? And will they hop between dimensions? And Sigourney
Weaver will definitely be a part of it? Or is half of that stuff in a
theoretical video game? He did say that screenwriters Eisenberg and Stupnitsky had been influenced by events in this upcoming game, and that some game elements are in their current story outline, for whatever that’s worth. The easy assumption is that the individual leading the new crew is Oscar, the son of Weaver’s character Dana Barrett, but we were strictly limited on questions and I was unable to bug Aykroyd about it.
Aykroyd also mentioned having a pair of science fiction scripts that he figures won’t get made as movies. But the new structure of games leading to movies gives him hope. The scripts “would make great games, and it would be impossible to make them as movies. But maybe, if the games are good enough, they can become movies.”
You might doubt some of Aykroyd’s sanity after all this, but know one thing: he still understands the second Ghostbusters movie is mostly crap, based on the following: “I respect Sigourney’s view towards protecting the quality of the first movie, and the good things that were in the second movie.” So there’s that.