Bill Murray's making the promotional rounds for Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die (read our review from Cannes here), and you know what that means: people are asking Bill Murray questions about Ghostbusters again. In an interesting twist, Murray seems to be talking about his feelings on the franchise far more openly than he has in years past.
For instance, in a new interview with Indiewire, Murray explains where he stands on the series now...
“This franchise paid for my son’s college. We made this thing. We are the caretakers of it. It’s a great thing and it was a really fun movie to make. It’s a real movie with some really funny stuff in it.”
...why he was reluctant to make a sequel to 1989's Ghostbusters 2...
“The relationship you have with [the cast and crew of the original Ghostbusters] as collaborators is not necessarily the relationship I have with Sony. For years, they said, ‘We can’t make another Ghostbusters because Bill Murray won’t change the deal he made in 1984.’ Well, no, I never did. And you know what? They made the movie. You’re the new guys, I’m the old guy. It was good enough for the other people so it’s going to have to be good enough for you.”
...and why he opted to appear in Paul Feig's 2016 reboot of the franchise.
“I was in that movie just because they asked me, and I knew if I said no, I was saying I didn’t support that movie. I felt like, OK, I’m going to support them because I support them as people. So I did that one and I would do this next one.”
That bit at the end there: that's an interesting development. Jason Reitman's forthcoming Ghostbusters movie (arriving next summer) is alleged to be a direct sequel to the first two films in the franchise, but so far we've heard precious little about how these films will connect to one another. We do know the film will center around a team of tweenage Ghostbusters (or, rather, tweenagers who will probably become Ghostbusters), but as of now we have no idea what role, if any, the original Ghostbusters characters may play in the narrative.
What do you folks think? Do you want to see Murray playing Peter Venkman again? Wish they'd leave well enough alone? Think Reitman's onto something, casting his sequel with kids rather than adults? Sound off in the comments below, and stay tuned for more on Ghostbusters (2020) as further updates become available.