When I was a child, I vividly remember my father telling me about the life cycle of an artist. There are only so many stories an artist has to tell and after that it is all repetition and rehashing of stories that he or she has already told. When that time comes, it is incumbent on the artist to recognize this and step aside for other artists to come and tell their stories. This recognition does not get acknowledged when it takes place in the film industry. Based on some of the dreck that has been excreted upon the silver screen in the last handful of years some would say there is oblivion in this department. Not so with SuperGenius Bill Murray, who starred in the two Ghostbusters films and does not seem too keen in helping a third one get made.
Don’t get me wrong — the original Ghostbusters film was brilliant. It is a film to which I can turn any time I want a reliable laugh. It’s not a mind-blowing epic drama or film saga as Star Wars was, or even the Lord of the Rings films, but it still got me wanting to come back time and time again. I was even thrilled as a kid when, a number of years after the original film was out, a sequel got people lining up at the box office once again. See, kids, the box office was where we older folk got our tickets before robotic kiosks started thermally spitting them out and people printed them at home on their twenty dollar printers with fifty dollar ink.
Should there be a third Ghostbusters film? The question is why is there a need for a third film? It has been nearly two decades since the second film and not everyone involved in the making of that was even particularly thrilled — notably, Bill Murray. See this clip from David Letterman for more details on this notion.
In a more recent interview, Murray reveals that he didn’t like the way that the second film turned out and that even though a third film has been scripted, he has not read the script yet.
It doesn’t take a genius of the level of the scientists turned ghostbusters from the films to know that when someone avoids reading your script, what he is really telling you in not so subtle ways is that it is not a script that should get made.
Feeling as though you “owe” the scriptwriter is fine and dandy, but let’s be honest — if Bill Murray had wanted the third film to get made, it would have gotten made a long time ago. Rather, he saw that it had the potential to tarnish the whole series and so rather than allow the trainwreck to occur, he derailed it early on and keeps stalling so that nobody has to suffer.
We applaud this bold decision by Bill Murray to stop even more fetid material from reaching our screens and draining our wallets while not amusing us.