Thanks for writing this awesome book man! I look forward to getting it.
Hi from Italy! 
Just started to read it and so far I liked it; just like the two movies, you discover some new little details every time you watch them.
One thing I’d like to ask about GB3: how many scripts did you see? And how many you DIDN’T see? Would you consider doing a book about the failed making of Ghostbusters 3? I saw one about the final movie of Laurel and Hardy, why not one about the unproduced third chapter of Ghostbusters!
Would you like to make, here on this post, just for us, a recap of all the GB3 plots?
I tracked down a few different full drafts of “Hellbent” and some story treatments related to it. Got the video game script. Couldn’t get a hold of the Stupnitsky / Eisenberg script or the Etan Cohen script. The plots are all detailed in the book and I’m not sure you could spin the whole thing into a separate book unless you can get a 12 hour interview with Dan Aykroyd!
… Wich is possible if you order a really frightening amount of Crystal Head Vodka
Thanks for the answer!
As an amateur writer, it’s always interesting to get a look into the thought processes involved in writing a book. Thanks for letting us get that glimpse.
I’m to the point where they are starting production on Ghostbusters 2.
I’m a little sad for Dan Aykroyd; by 1989 the best of his cinematic career was already behind him.
Don’t you disrespect “My Girl” like that!
Well, it was a good movie but it wasn’t Louis Winthorpe or Elwood Blues 
Also, Murray on GB3 while promoting Ghostbusters 2: “Maybe if one of us is going to die or something, we’ll do it again. You know, if someone is going down with leukemia, we’ll try to do one more”.
Thanks Bill.
I believe he had his first kid in 1989 after GB2. He was Pushing 40. Priorities probably changed
I liked coneheads
Coneheads is pretty funny. He was also great in Gross Point Blank.
Also let us not forget his pivotal scene in Casper(which is hilarious considering the Casper people sued over the first movie and the GB Logo).
I always thought Dan deserved the second career wind that Bill Murray got and I think that’s a shame he didn’t happen for him, tho I don’t think he went after it either. Dan has a real screen presence to him. That voice? There’s just something about him I dig. I always wanted to hear Coen Bros or Quentin Tarantino dialogue come out of his mouth but…he just never went there.
As a Canadian I grew up with these little “Canadian Heritage” commercials that promoted all the cool shit Canadians did like famous inventions & deeds(those of you fellow Canadians will remember quotes like “Burnt toast! I smell burnt toast Doctor!” Or “Come on Vince, Come on!”) anyways in the mid ‘90s Aykroyd starred in one about the fascinating but ill fated Avro Arrow fighter jet project and then starred in the movie version for the CBC. It’s a good little movie & probably one of his better performances. I think it was a passion project for him given that A) it was a CBC movie and no way could they meet his fee & B) he’s a proud Canadian a real gear head.
It is kinda weird that Aykroyd’s dramatic career sort of begins and ends with his Oscar nomination for “Driving Miss Daisy.” I guess he always felt his bread was buttered elsewhere. He seems a little risk averse. Check out this quote from a 2010 AP interview: “I will walk out the door for the paycheck I deserve and working with the superstars. Otherwise, I won’t work as an actor. I’m sorry. I don’t have to, and why shouldn’t I get what is commensurate with what my market will bear today? It’s not the salary I used to get, and I don’t care if I play a supporting part. Fine. I’m reasonable…But I’m not going to work for nothing, and I’m not going to work for people who are unknown. I can’t do it.”
For the record, I think his best work after 1989 is in “Tommy Boy.” “Savor the flavor, kid, because it won’t happen again!”
Do you still have access to the GB3 Hellbent scripts?
Because it sure would be terrible if, oh I don’t know, they somehow got onto the internet. Anonymously. I mean…imagine if somehow someone created a Reddit account & leaked those scripts? Using google docs or some other cloud based server. I can’t imagine it. Who would do such a thing?
Or can you imagine if someone were to bribe you to share those scripts? Say…$150? What kind of person would do such a thing? We live in a decent society darn it! And if you were willing to offer said scripts for said $ I’m sure you wouldn’t message anyone showing an interest in buying them. I mean come on people! We are ghostbusters fans. We don’t go for such shenanigans here.
cough cough. Excuse me. I’m suffering from a terrible cough. It also causes me to wink wink with my eye. It’s very annoying.
So how bout those Mets, huh? Oh. Baseball seasons over? What i meant to say is…So how about them…Nets?, huh? Terrible team this year. Just awful.
Did I mention I LOVED your book? Just ignore everything I said about the title, your writing ability(I still screw up my “there” “their” and “theyre”. Who am I to judge?), and every other criticism I had. Heh. I did say it was the best Ghostbusters “making of” book ever made. Yep. I said that.
…I’ll show myself out now.
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I still have the “Hellbent” scripts and as much as I’d love to betray my sources by leaking them I actually do not want to do that!
Haven’t they ever considered doing something else with those GB3 scripts (Hellbent and Alive Again)? Comic book miniseries, animated series…
As Greene noted in the book, there was a brief revision of the script around 2006 to turn Hellbent into a CG animated movie but nothing came of it. Then came The Video Game. But in the early 2010s, Tristan Jones “tried pitching it, several times” but it “got pretty much ignored at every turn.” Tom Waltz then added, “We’ve discussed it a bit with Sony in the past but unforeseen circumstances (not the least of which was Mr. Ramis’ tragic death) sidelined the idea as newer priorities within the brand (both at Sony and IDW) took center stage.” Though I suppose in very loose terms, Hellbent could have inspired the Ghostbusters brief jaunt in Hell in Ghostbusters International #11 in 2016.
Exactly what I wanted to hear! See ….it was all a, um, test. You passed. Congratulations. A lesser man would’ve succumbed to such blatantly pathetic appeals. But not you.
Let that be a lesson to all you here reading this now. Never betray your sources! Not even for bribes! Not even for 150 dollar bribes. Or 300 dollar bribes. Heck I’m sure someone, definitely not me, but someone, would even go as high as a 500 dollar bribe. But we must stay strong & never waiver. Sure we all want to read the GB3 Hellbent script and would push our own grandmothers down a flight of stairs to do so but we’ve got to draw the line somewhere. (Which reminds me, I know you won’t read this but let me just say, again, sorry Grandma. I’m sure your hip, leg & arm will heal just fine)
On a serious note. Was one the scripts you read the version that’s partly been seen online? Where Egon & Ray seem to be doing some sort of experiment with a tiny glowing ball. I wanna say a “gluon” or some such thing?
Also years ago IGN did a script review of GB3, a dude named “Stax”. Some of it sounds familiar. Do you know if that was one of the versions you read?
There’s still so much we don’t know about that movie. Did Dan & Harold ever sit down together & bang out a draft credited to both of them? We know Harold was involved here and there, but was his name ever on a draft with Dan’s?
It makes you wonder. We have this idea in our heads, at least I do, of how these guys all got along and collaborated but I wonder if it was more business like than I’d like to imagine. Like…why would Dan write a Ghostbusters script with anyone other than Harold? Harold seemed willing. It’s just…these two, along with Ivan, created some great magic together. I think no one understood what makes Ghostbusters work as well as those 3 guys TOGETHER. Neither could do it without the others. But then Dan writes these drafts with Tom Davis, and Harold seemingly pitches in here and there. But we’ve yet a see a GB3 draft of Hellbent pop up with his name on it. Like I said, we just imagine these guys as good friends and close collaborators. I’m just not sure how close to reality that was. I know Harold said he wasn’t 100% invested in it and that they were writing it on spec(which means no one was getting paid). I guess my ideal imagined scenario is Dan calls up Harold and, being buddies and a great writing duo, they both get together and write Ghostbusters 3. They do it for the passion of it. Because they are friends. But maybe they were just work related friends, ya know? Nothing wrong with that it’s just…I duno. Not how I imagined it,
Thanks for the kind words, man! I’m just a curious fan like you.
Agreed on Alex, he’s one of my absolute favorite fans! “The Summer of 89” Youtube series was a huge gift and I loved his segments on the Ghostheads doc. If I could sneak onto the GB: Firehouse set and leave any sort of set dressing behind, I would have a framed photo of Alex and his sons on Janine’s desk.
Agreed! That was a very cool gesture from the guys. Outside of a few articles, I never really dug into the history of the game much. What a roller coaster! I was a little freaked out to be nostalgic about 2008.
This has bugged me for a while, as well. Michael Gross was working with the concept artists early on. My guess is that he just had a slip of the ■■■■■■■■■■■ meeting with Enriquez. Thom’s notes from the meeting are printed in the Visual History book. An interesting bit, Enriquez was the only artist in the production office. All others worked remotely.
To be a fly on the wall of the Elaine May meeting!
Dustin Hoffman would’ve been great as Justin. I’ve wondered if Ivan offered Vigo to Schwarzenegger, considering they had just released Twins. Arnold may have been shooting Total Recall by that point. Imagine GB2, filmed by Kovacs, scored by Bernstein, with Hoffman and Arnold. Wild!
The fight on the courtroom set is interesting. In the grand scheme of Hollywood’s seedy underbelly, it’s a relatively quaint story, I guess. Par for course—it’s no lie Bill hated the proton packs! Bummer they weren’t rolling camera. Imagine a shot of Venkman flipping the equipment table before battling the Scoleris!
It wasn’t filmed, but the role was cast prior to the scene being nixed. Gottfried would’ve been PERFECT. I’m guessing this scene was a release schedule casualty, as it think it really would’ve really helped the story. Imagine Gilbert hanging with the GBs in the firehouse lab? Did Gilbert ever mention the GB2 thing in media?
I’ve recently discovered Gottfried’s podcast. DUDE WAS A GENIUS!!! Caesar Romero and the orange slices?
Going back to the Stax and Proton Charging reviews/pages, they all cover the March ’99 first draft.
James Greene’s research unearthed the 1997 treatment details, which was all new (AWESOME) information.
I’d say more like really, really good work-related friends that went through a crazy, life/cultural-changing project together.
I think you kind of answered your own question there. That process was happening! They got together, apparently had a lot of conversations about it. Even though it was on spec, Harold still worked with Dan trying to develop it, offering his ideas, the tintype hell idea, considering directing etc. It just never happened progressed any further. If there wasn’t a friendliness and respect there, I don’t think they would’ve collaborated at all on it.
Another interesting bit here, Ramis was also developing Bedazzled in the late-90s. The devil-centric comedy with Elizabeth Hurley and Brendan Fraser. Were the projects being so closely related in subject play a part in Hellbent never moving forward as a Ramis-directed movie? I guess we’ll never know.
I’m not too good with the quote feature on here but I will add that yes, I have the full copy of the “Hellbent” draft IGN and PC posted about back in the day. Also, I’ve listened to nearly every episode of Gilbert Gottfried’s podcast and I never heard him mention “Ghostbusters II” (and he was never shy about discussing roles he lost). However, when Richard Donner was his guest, they talked about Gilbert auditioning for the taxi cab driver in “Scrooged.” I believe he asked Donner why he didn’t get it and Donner said one of his family members was dating David Johansen.
[quote=jg2 post_id=4974548 time=1668820404 user_id=52879]I’m not too good with the quote feature on here but I will add that yes, I have the full copy of the “Hellbent” draft IGN and PC posted about back in the day. Also, I’ve listened to nearly every episode of Gilbert Gottfried’s podcast and I never heard him mention “Ghostbusters II” (and he was never shy about discussing roles he lost). However, when Richard Donner was his guest, they talked about Gilbert auditioning for the taxi cab driver in “Scrooged.” I believe he asked Donner why he didn’t get it and Donner said one of his family members was dating David Johansen.
[/quote]
It’s one of those things that rekindles the spark when you think you know everything there is to know. Then on a podcast, Kurt Fuller drops a new bombshell that Gottfried was in the GB2 cast ever so briefly. The possibilities of what else we don’t know it is very exciting!
Holy moly, on a parallel Earth out there in the multiverse there’s a GB2 where Vigo by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hell, I can now see a Jack Hardemeyer played by Danny DeVito.