Ivan Reitman will not direct Ghostbusters 3; shooting begins in 2015

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

You looking for some solid GHOSTBUSTERS 3 news, at long last? Well, here it is: the sequel/reboot is scheduled to begin shooting in early 2015, with the locale being none other than New York City.

Here’s the even bigger turn of events: Ivan Reitman has stepped down and will no longer direct. Instead, he’ll act as a producer on the project and will play an integral part in finding a new director.

In an interview with Deadline, Reitman coughed up some details about what’s been going on with the film and why he has decided to walk away from the director’s chair.

There has been all kinds of stuff, unofficially written about Ghostbusters… I’ve been reading things online for about four years, speculation on who’s writing, what they’re writing, who’s in it, who we will use, and who’s directing. We’d decided not to comment up till now, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, and it was never clear what Bill was going to do. A lot of things happened in the last few months, the most significant of which was the passing of Harold, who was a very good friend who was extraordinarily influential in my career. We did five movies together including both Ghostbusters.”

It’s clear that the passing of Harold Ramis had at least a partial effect on Reitman’s decision:

When I came back from Harold’s funeral, it was really moving and it made me think about a lot of things. I’d just finished directing Draft Day, which I’m really happy with and proud of. Working on a film that is smaller and more dramatic was so much fun and satisfying. I just finally met with Amy and Doug Belgrad when I got back. I said I’d been thinking about it for weeks, that I’d rather just produce this Ghostbusters. I told them I thought I could help but let’s find a really good director and make it with him. So that’s what we’ve agreed will happen. I didn’t want all kinds of speculation about what happened with me, that is the real story.”

So there you have it. It’s kind of looking like the original GHOSTBUSTERS team won’t be re-assembling here, so perhaps GHOSTBUSTERS 3 is more of a straight-up reboot of the franchise. Let’s hope we learn more in the coming months.