Recently, Bill Murray showed up unexpectedly at Fantastic Fest, where some enterprising videojournalist asked about Ghostbusters 3. Murray had quite a few thoughts on the subject.

I think the wounds from Ghostbusters 2 have healed. And supposedly they have hired two guys from The Office to write a script. So that could work. I think that’s a good idea to get a fresh look at… I always liked the characters. The characters are fun. And we did have a lot of fun making the movie. The first one was really a lot of fun to make. And I think the first 45 minutes of Ghostbusters is about as fun as a movie gets.

On the subject of special effects, he had some particularly smart remarks.

We didn’t have a lot of special effects in it. There were just a couple. It was just the funny characters in that world, and I like that movie because of it. The first movie had like 60 plate shots. The second movie had like hundreds. Those guys got their hands on the script early, and it was GONE. It went away. It was hard to wrangle because it was tied all around the effects without the story or the characters coming first. So, they are hard movies to write, and Dan really caught it with that first one.

Trying to make Ghostbusters into a special effects extravaganza would be missing the point. Ghosbusting itself should take a backseat to the comedy aspects, most of which revolved around the dialogue and interaction between characters. Luckily Bill Murray understands this, and considering that The Office is a dialogue-driven show, writers with experience from it should handle this right. Hopefully, some producer along the line won’t insist on spicing it up with extra CGI.

Ghostbusters 3 has the opportunity to be a really classic threequel that honors the tradition of the beloved original; let’s all hope they take Bill Murray’s advice. A Ghostbusters that’s filled with unnecessary effects is a Ghostbusters that will just annoy the fans.

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