'Ghostbusters III' to start production in early 2015

RUMORTON - For years now we've been promised a third installment of the Ghostbusters franchise only to be disappointed again and again. Now the original films' director, Ivan Reitman, has said "Ghostbusters III" is set to start filming early next year.

"I'm hoping we can get started by the fall, set in New York," Reitman told Deadline. "But given the logistics and the stuff that happens, the beginning of 2015 seems more likely."

Reitman was originally slated to direct the new film, but since the passing of his friend and Ghostbusters star Harold Ramis, Reitman decided to take on a producing role and is helping the studio find a new director.

"We'd decided not to comment up until now," Reitman said. "I wasn't sure what I was going to do, and it was never clear what Bill was going to do."

Bill Murray played Dr. Peter Venkman in the first two films and is considered by many as the backbone of the Ghostbuster films.

While the studio hopes to have all of the original players return to the film, with the exception of Ramis, they will only play small roles.

"I kept pushing forward on (a script) by Etan Cohen and now we have a draft that is very good, that the studio is very excited about," Reitman said. "It's a version of Ghostbusters that has the originals in a very minor role."

Writer Etan Cohen has a number of television writing credits, and his feature film credits include "Tropic Thunder," "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" and "Men in Black 3."

Reitman said that this project has been in development for years, but the missing piece has been Bill Murray.

"It became clear that Bill really didn't want to do another Ghostbusters and that it was literally impossible to find him to speak to for the year or two we tried to get it going."

It's not solidly confirmed that Murray will join the third film and Reitman isn't willing to reveal the size of the new cast.

"I'm not going to say how many Ghostbusters there will be in the new cast, but we are determined to retain the spirit of the original film."%3Cimg%20src%3D%22http%3A//beacon.deseretconnect.com/beacon.gif%3Fcid%3D154810%26pid%3D46%22%20/%3E</group><group id="6C66731B-BB4E-4893-8FAF-7C0FDEBD2BF2" type="seoLabels"><seoLabels></seoLabels></group></idf></inlineXML></contentSet></