Will The Ghostbusters Franchise Go To The Kasdan Family?

Yesterday we reported on Harold Ramis' suggestion that neither he or original director Ivan Reitman might be interested in taking the directing reins for the impending Ghostbusters 3. And now, in a wrap-up report of all the news about the sequel, Slashfilm suggests someone who might be willing to step up.

Jake Kasdan directed the hilarious and under-appreciated Walk Hard and the minor comedic hit Orange County, but would he really be ready to take over the Ghostbusters franchise? Slashfilm hears from a good source that Kasdan is pursuing the job, though there's no suggestion of how likely he is to get it or whether anyone else wants to give him the job. Apparently Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ivan Reitman and Columbia Pictures itself all have the ability to end production on the film with a single veto, which means somehow all these guys are going to have to come to an agreement over everything. It might be a while before we even see a finished script, much less a director.

But the Kasdan idea is intriguing, if only because it wraps Ghostbusters further in the 80s glory days-- Jake's dad is Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back and directed The Big Chill. Jake has demonstrated some of his dad's grasp of comedy and storytelling even way back with Freaks & Geeks, and he's part of the same Office-centric comedy crew that includes Ghostbusters 3 writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg. Is Kasdan a shoo-in for the job? No. But there's a pretty short list of people who I'd like to see take it, and Kasdan is definitely on it. That is, provided Bill Murray doesn't have a change of heart and end the whole thing tomorrow.