Bill Murray will not be taking calls to fight ghosts in another installment of the Ghostbusters franchise. The actor and comedian has apparently retired his ghost-busting uniform for good.
According to Empire magazine, the funny man has said, “No one wants to pay money to see fat, old men chasing ghosts.”
Writer and star Dan Aykroyd has hinted that the planned second sequel to Ghostbusters may move forward without its biggest star, Bill Murray.
Without going into details in an Empire magazine webchat, Aykroyd suggested that Murray’s character, Peter Venkman, might have to be recast. He also responded to rumors about Murray shredding the latest revision of the script to show his disapproval of another Ghostbusters being made.
“We have a deep, private personal relationship that transcends business. We communicate frequently and his position on the involvement in Ghostbusters 3 has been made clear and I respect that. But Bill has too much positive estimation of my writing skills to shred the work,” Aykroyd said.
If and when “Ghostbusters 3” does move into production, and with or without Murray, it appears Aykroyd is committed to the success of the long time coming project.
“The script must be perfect. We cannot release a film that is any less than that,” he said. “We have more work to do.”
