Columbia Pictures Good news for folks still hoping against hope for another Ghostbusters movie.
According to Variety, Sony Pictures has tapped Men in Black 3 scribe Etan Cohen to rewrite a long-in-the-works reboot of the hit '80s franchise. If he's successful, it could reunite stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, as older versions of their youthful ghost-chasing selves.
But that's a big 'if.'
It doesn't take a clairvoyant to know the odds are long on this one, particularly since Murray has had major reservations about reprising his role as lazy ladies man Dr. Peter Venkman for a third go-round of the franchise. While he hasn't completely rejected the idea, the 61-year-old actor told The Late Show With David Letterman last month that it would take one hell of a script for him to commit to it.
"They just don't have a really good script. It's hard," he told David Letterman. "Even the second Ghostbusters wasn't as much fun for me as the first one. It's hard to make a sequel. That first one was really funny. It was just so darn funny, it's hard for me."
Cue Cohen.
Before MIB:3, the screenwriter—who got his start penning Beavis and Butthead episodes for Mike Judge before moving on to write the latter's 2006 feature comedy Idiocracy as well as Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa—earned his biggest claim to fame cowriting Tropic Thunder with Ben Stiller and Justin Theroux.
Cohen has the unenviable task of picking up where the writing team Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky left off after they were hired initially to pen the latest installment.
After pushing Murray hard on the project, Aykroyd acknowledged the challenge ahead, the idea for which he came up with he's been bouncing around for years.
"It's got to be perfect. That's the whole thing," he told Amherst, New York station WIVB during a promotional appearance recently. "There's no point in doing it unless it's perfect. So that's what we're up to now."
Lets hope Cohen nails it for fans' sake.
"We'll try again," added Murray. "I'm always dragging my feet on it."