Page 1 of 2
Ivan Reitman introduced a screening of the Blu Ray release of Ghostbusters. A first look at the HD transfer showed a perfectly clean and clear print of the film that will certainly be worth analyzing in detail on your home HDTV. We caught up with Reitman on classic Ghostbusters memories, the new video game and of course the new possibilities of a Ghostbusters 3.
Crave Online: How real is the possibility of a Ghostbusters 3 now?
Ivan Reitman: Ghostbusters 3 is never definite. We’re not being coy when we say this. We have sort of this very complicated arrangement. A lot of people have a say in what’s going to happen.
Crave Online: Would you still direct it?
Ivan Reitman: Certainly as producer and director of the original movie, I’m going to have that opportunity. The only way I could direct it is if I felt that I could find something wonderfully new to do and to live up to the tradition of the first one. So don’t write that I’m going to direct the next one. I’m not sure and I’m not even sure that there is going to be a next one but I think there’s certainly a great interest in doing it.
Crave Online: What’s changed to even make this a real possibility?
Ivan Reitman: You know, I took a lot of crap when we finally did the sequel. I certainly don’t think the sequel is as good as the original and it almost never is except in really rare occasions, but I remember making the sequel and thinking, “Wow, this is really hard because we don’t have the surprise in our pockets that we had.” When we were making the original, I kept thinking, “Wow, this is going to be great. People have no idea what we’re doing and we’re going to come out and it’s going to be a magical experience.” It turned out to be that. With the sequel, I kept thinking, “Oh my God, we’re going to get killed. There’s no way to recapture the magic of the first one.” We had sort of let a little bit too much time go by from the first to the second, so on the cycle of people’s interests, we were in the wrong part of the cycle. I’d like to think now we’re back to a greater interest to it.
Crave Online: Are you a Blu Ray fan?
Ivan Reitman: Yeah, I’m an early adopter. I have a collection of over 4000 laserdiscs and then all of a sudden this thing called DVDs came out so I’m used to this.
Crave Online: What makes Ghostbusters such a favorite still 25 years later?
Ivan Reitman: I think there’s something about the combination of the actors are very, very special. They’re unique talents with an extraordinary voice individually that seem to combine beautifully as a piece of music. I think that in combination with Dan Aykroyd’s unique, crazy vision of this idea and the sort of mixture of genres of real good comedy with really kind of a legitimate, scary, science fiction story. It was the first time anyone sort of tried to do that. Mel Brooks had done it in a humorous way a little bit before me but I really took it seriously. I was always kind of a horror, science fiction fan. So I thought if I was going to do it even as a comedy, I wanted to legitimize it so that people who were fans of the genre would really appreciate it as well.
Crave Online: With the game showcasing 3D animation, would you consider a 3D version?
Ivan Reitman: It’s possible. I just saw Up which is a lovely movie and really works and the 3D is done in such a subtle way, it actually works fabulously in it. Yeah, it’s a possibility but don’t start writing that we’re doing it in 3D.
Crave Online: Were there other scripts over the years you’d shot down?
Ivan Reitman: Yes. Not a lot because it’s always been a closed shop. There’d be people who spec scripts that we didn’t even look at because we just didn’t want to get into all the legal issues that you could imagine would come from that.
