UPDATE: Purported 2009 Ghostbusters 3 Script Busted

We've gone to great lengths over many years to try to keep this blog in good standing as a focused, trustworthy account of Ghostbusters 3 development. A lot of questionable project updates (and fan fiction pitches) have been mulled over and passed on since 2007, as the third film's pre-production process has been notorious for quotes taken out of context, feuds "exposed" by "credible" sources as the National Enquirer and now lies surrounding a purported 2009 draft of the script.

Our favorite news sources admit their blunders and burn their sources when misinformation ends up published. We'll be doing the same.



On Sunday night a full script, entitled GHOSTBUSTERS, INC., was passed to us by a swahilidave@gmail.com. He claimed that the treatment was a leaked draft of the third film from 2009. We checked with someone who has claimed to have read drafts around 2009-2010, they confirmed that the script was the real deal.

We asked who else Dave had pitched to. This was the response.

Some script details were dead on with what we had seen rumored in 2009. Any conflicting details, we explained away. Wanting to believe, we published a review and linked to the script. Bloody Disgusting and ScareTissue followed early the next morning with similar write-ups attributed to email tip-offs.

Over the next day, the folks behind Proton Charging and Ghostbusters HQ went an extra step and took a shot at asking an inactive @GeneStupnitsky Twitter account if the script was legit. The account came to life for the first time in four years to deny the claim.

@protoncharging False. No clue what this is. We wrote three completely different scripts over 4-5 years. This doesn't resemble any of them.
— genestupnitsky (@genestupnitsky) November 18, 2014

Weary of the unverified account (though that tweet was wonderfully specific) we updated the blog, noted the development and waited for further confirmation. Proton Charging went a step further and tried for Gene's sister, who pushed the information the other way in the most official capacity yet.

That is in fact the real Gene Stupnitsky @protoncharging and not their script.
— Alex Stupnitsky (@AlexStupnitsky) November 19, 2014

We asked Dave for a response concerning the Gene Stupnitsky tweet and 24 hours have passed without reply.

So here's an official apology for running with it. The error is not only regretted, but also infuriating... a lot of hours were wasted on this dribble. Sorry we let you down, guys.

A big round of applause to @ProtonCharging and @GhostbustersHQ, who you should follow (but you probably already do if you're reading this little corner of blogger-ville).

.@belushiaykroydx Some are people who just want attention. Others, just nutballs who come in off the street.
— Planet Ghostbusters (@protoncharging) November 19, 2014

ICYMI: "Ghostbusters, Inc." script floating around confirmed as fake by writer Gene Stupnitsky c/o @protoncharging cc. @PatrickGeCooper
— Ghostbusters HQ (@ghostbusterhq) November 19, 2014

Anyways, if you enjoy reading things that don't matter anymore in strike-through mode or just like transparency of what came before, here's all the text from earlier, minus the link to the bunk script. Out of spite, we'll leave our negative review bits without strike-through. >:)~

Today this blog was tipped off that the 2009 draft of Ghostbusters 3 had leaked onto the Internet. After we changed our pants, we did our best to authenticate it. We reached out to a film executive who confirmed "this is definitely one of the drafts." From everything else we've read, this looks like the real deal, an actual draft of what might have been a third Ghostbusters film, written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky.

***That's what it looks like, but more items keep coming to light that are questioning the validity of our two sources. One is a twitter account purporting to be that of Gene Stupnitsky. The account is not verified but it has existed since 2010. It has never tweeted until today but there are a few TV writers following it. The account has no profile picture but there are not many Gene Stupnitskys in the United States according to our research. Many conflicting items are at play in verifying the account as a source,  but it claims that this draft does not resemble any written by Lee/Gene in that time period. Additionally, while we're playing detective, Google Trends reveals that dubstep (mentioned early in the script) had yet to peak in popularity back in Spring of 2009. It took another year for that to become the popular annoyance standard. We will update as we learn more.***

This draft is from April 8th, 2009. To take you back to that time, Ghostbusters fans were in a fervor leading up to the video game's June release, the writers had been working on the script for maybe 8 months, Murray had done voice over as Peter Venkman less than a year before and Sony was thinking that a 2011 release date was possible.

About a month following this version of the script, Aykroyd was quoted in an interview talking about new ideas that do not appear in this draft. These included a female lead and inter-dimensional travel. It is likely that this script changed quite a bit more before being pitched to Murray and getting a complete reworking by Etan Cohen in 2012.

There are lots of little reasons to believe that this script is the real deal, but for us the biggest tell was that Ray Stantz is wearing an eyepatch. Aykroyd stated in a 2010 Vanity Fair interview "my character’s eyesight is shot", again in 2011 that Stantz was "blind in one eye." We can't find the interview right now but in the last few months Aykroyd has revealed that he wears his Blues Brothers sunglasses in interviews because of an eye problem he has.

The plot featured a lot of Egon, so this script will never be used. Still, elements could pop up in future stories, so be warned. If you gave it a read, let's talk about it shall we?

**SPOILERS AHEAD**




Here is a brief summary of the plot.

The Ghostbusters' business expanded through the 90's and 2000's, with Stantz and Spengler serving as CEOs. In that time, Venkman split from the group to begin a political career, culminating in his election as mayor. In that time also there was an incident in which the Ghostbusters blew up the Triborough bridge in order to save the city from an unnamed supernatural threat. Venkman found his hands tied politically and pushed for Stantz and Spengler to step down as heads of Ghostbusters, Inc.

The business fell into the hands of a young crew that cheapened the brand. They implemented an annoying twist on the logo, dubstepped the theme song for their commercials. and developed wands with weak proton streams so they'd do less damage to city property. Said streams were also less capable of permanently taking down strong entities. Egon and Ray continued to do consulting and cataloguing work for Ghostbusters, with Oscar Barret assisting them. Dana married another man. Janine went to work for Mayor Venkman.

In present day, a series of sightings of a spindly ghost has the media pressing the mayor for action and the new Ghostbusters at a loss for a containment plan. The original Ghostbusters aim to chew out current CEO Prendaghast and bump into Mayor Venkman in the process at GBHQ. Stantz and Spengler get to the bottom of the hauntings in mere minutes,  the spindly spook mirrors a World's Fair architect who once attempted to become immortal by snatching up souls. Mayor Venkman tells current CEO Prendaghast to step down.

The original Ghostbusters are back, only this time they are not working in the private sector, they've been put on city payroll just like the police and fire department.  Most of the new Ghostbusters are fired, some newer quirkier young guns are hired and a montage of training and busting takes place.

The Ghostbusters perform a city-wide PKE scan that points to a spike at an old Staten Island insane asylum where the slender architect spent the last years of his life. Winston and the new recruits check it out, battle the spindly ghost and find an ancient negative energy capacitator deep beneath the hospital. Oscar accidentally sets it off and releases a massive energy ball into the sky. Clouds churn over the Hudson bay and an elder god with a great many tentacles rises from the waters. As things go to hell, Dana chews Venkman out for not being much of a role model to the child they raised together for so many years.

All of Ghostbusters Inc., including previously fired employees and now Venkman, stand against it with full proton streams blasting... but only manage to slow it down. Spengler, Stantz and Venkman decide to try the old "cross the streams" trick one last time, without their juniors or Winston in tow. Doing so emits a total protonic reversal, a God-killing monster blast and actually vaporizes the Ghostbusters.

In a final scene, Janine is back working at Ghostbusters HQ and stumbles upon the ghosts of the three guys, playing a game of cards.


THE GREAT:

• "Ghostbusters, Inc." is a fantastic title and better than "Ghostbusters 3"
• Many have said that the first Ghostbusters film worked best because it was a movie about starting a business. This film keeps those themes by exploring what happens when businesses expand and lose their founders. The original Ghostbusters needed a challenge to overcome and being outsiders to their organization felt perfect, and very modern.
• A great tease from Egon at the start with CERN Boson testing somehow predicting an end-of-the-world date. Good movie fodder for further installments.
• The incident with the Triborough Bridge. Not knowing everything is the best, and that the Ghostbusters saved the city one other time in the past 15 years but destroyed a bridge in the process is a great story within this story.
• Venkman For Mayor: Sure being mayor keeps Venkman from much of the action and interaction with the busters, but having him in that position makes a lot of sense. Venkman running for mayor was a plot point in the 2004 Sholly Fisch novel as well. Janine's role in the mayor's office was a great advancement for her character. We also love President Lenny.
• The development of weak proton streams to avoid collateral damage was a great concept. It would have been nice to see those fail on the job. It was satisfying to see the gang use classic proton gear.
• A psychic battery gathering negative energy beneath a mental asylum. Pure Ghostbusters.

THE GOOD:

• You know how every time someone mentioned Seth Rogen or James Franco as a Ghostbuster, fans would collectively shudder? That concept would be great to play with by casting them as the impostor Ghostbusters who desecrate the logo and make the theme-song annoyingly dubsteppy. They're described as "movie-star" busters and you'd love to hate them. And after a while they're written out of the script. We've never seen the Ghostbusters fire anybody, so that works extremely well. 
• Because you hate the impostor Ghostbusters so much, you like Oscar right away. That was sneaky and perfect. 
• Some Ghostbusters: The Video Game continuity was at play! Namely the packs having the ability to switch to Slime mode and Slimer in a ecto-containment-cage. Very cool that Stantz released the spud at one point.  
• Declaring ghostbusting to be a public service felt like the right move. Now they're officially on par with fire-fighting and crime-fighting.
• Cat/ghost monster was nice and weird, but you kind of feel bad for the garbage cats getting zapped.
• The guys as ghosts at the end was a fine beat.

THE MEH:

• The repeating ghost is basically Slenderman in design, and would not work today. A faceless man with long spindly arms in a suit. Yep. Oddly, Slenderman lore began that Spring in 2009. Must have been a collective consciousness thing. Of note, the look may have been a reference to the original form of Gozer planned for the first film.
• The script spent a good amount of time with Venkman's mayoral duties, welcoming ambassadors and cutting ribbons, but they never became plot points. 
• The new Ghostbusters are introduced and could badly use a stronger B-story in the final battle. They hardly even factor into the solution, especially Oscar. It would have been a grand triumph if that kid ended up saving Venkman's life as a final beat. Somehow. 
• Not much set up/pay off for the final battle with the three guys. The location is seemingly random, besides being a bit of a call-back to the first film. Cross-the-streams isn't new or exciting, even if it has a different outcome (though "blow up the Death Star" feels the same way in Jedi, right?). Even using positive energy slime/cheering to defeat Vigo was a better set up and pay off to end the second film, though much more low-key.
• Sacrifice of the Ghostbusters. They all died. Wow. Feels like they died more for the final image of them being ghosts than for anything else. 

THE BAD

• The final elder god is Cthulhu in every way, yet they never say the name. Is this like how zombie movies never mention the word "zombie"? Unsure what to feel about H.P. Lovecraft's lore pulled into the Ghostbusters universe. It fits in many ways, but in other ways Ghostbusters has always been more original than using the creations of others. 
• Familiarity in structure: The Ghostbusters re-re-restart their business, cue montage, psychic energy is gathered and a giant thing walks the streets of New York City. Those things happened in the first two movies as well. Are they the beats that make Ghostbusters movie a Ghostbusters movie or are they the beats that make for an unsurprising sequel? 
• So much backstory. We often have the history of the Ghostbusters past 20 years repeated to us twice in this draft. It causes a lull in plot progression and makes this film as talky in the first 40 minutes as Ghostbusters II.  
• The story at this draft is lacking an emotional core. The first half is about Ray's want to over-see Ghostbusters again. The second half is without focus, Dana is married to a character that doesn't leave an impact, her interaction with Peter doesn't come until the end and that conversation is incredibly bleak/harsh. The bad father-son relationship with Oscar/Venkman needed to be more prevalent throughout to have a better impact and allow us to accept Peter sacrificing his life. 

All-in-all, the script was a little slow to start but found many solid ideas to work with. Judging the comedy is hard to do because so much of that can be attributed to performances on set, but this draft was certainly no Year One. Where did the Eisenberg/Stupnitsky drafts go from here? What elements of this script leaked into Etan Cohen's script? Time will hopefully tell...

Did you read the script? What are your thoughts? New cars? New busters? First-person footage shaky cam? Odd objects imbued with melding, hovering power? Chat it up.