If ever there were a movie franchise that we all want to see continue, whether that be admittedly or deep down, it would be Ghostbusters. In the fall of last year, it was confirmed that the third film was moving forward with Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky hired to write the script.

About five weeks ago, Internet rumors were abound that comedy man of the minute, Judd Apatow, was going to head the production of Ghostbusters 3 - possibly because of Eisenberg and Stupnitsky writing both that and the Apatow-produced Year One. As it turns out, Apatow will not be involved in any way with the film which might be a good thing since his style doesn't really fit all that well with what Ghostbusters essentially is.

To step things back into a more believable, "more than rumor" light, MTV News got a chance to speak to Ghostbusters writer/actor Harold Ramis while he was promoting his new film Year One, inevitably leading to questions about the continuation of the Ghostbusters series. First off, and this is probably of most interest to you all, is the fact that he said the original cast members will be back - yes, that means himself, Aykroyd and even Bill Murray (the latter being the one big road block in the continuing of this franchise for 20 years now). Ramis said:

We're all going to be in it in different kinds of roles," Ramis said. "We're going to be the sage mentors. There are going to be young Ghostbusters."

Although Ramis made a point to say that the new Ghostbusters will be young, that doesn't necessarily rule out the rumored Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd and James Franco, who are 26, 39 and 30 years old, respectively - he's probably just meaning not a 55-plus year old main cast...

However, since Apatow isn't involved in any way, there's no concrete reason to think Rogen, Rudd and Franco are in the running - the reason they were rumored in the first place was because Apatow was rumored to be attached, a director who's movies often feature his regulars like Rogen and Rudd.

At the moment, Ramis says he's waiting for a first draft of the script:

"Gene and Lee, both of whom I mentored, are now writing the new 'Ghostbusters,' " Ramis said. "I'm consulting with them, as is Dan Aykroyd and [original director] Ivan Reitman.

"Bill Murray is just waiting for the truckload of money to arrive to get him out of his office," Ramis joked.

It seems that it's not just in the fan's heads that Murray is mainly holding out for the big bucks - Ramis, the guy basically in the driver's seat, is now at the point of taking little shots at his old friend. Nonetheless a jab is all it was, and he went on to say that he wants Murray involved, and is confident he will be once he gets the script:

"I haven't talked to him about it," Ramis said. "I want to talk to him about it eventually. I think we just need a script, because he's the thorniest of the group."

Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis

Aside from the money issue, Murray's main qualm with making a third film is that he needs the script to be right. He has let it be known before that he didn't like the script for the second film, that it was a completely different movie than he thought it would be, and that it was a disappointment mainly because it relied heavily on special effects. Murray is an icon of the comedy genre, and so him giving the usually generic "the script has to be right" answer can be taken far more seriously than it otherwise could have been.

Amongst the millions of questions people have about the next Ghostbusters film, there is the significant one about who will direct it. Since neither Ramis or Ivan Reitman (who directed the original) are planning on helming this, it's up in the air who it will be.

I'd like to throw my hat in the ring for Jason Reitman, the man behind Juno and Thank You For Smoking (who is, coincidentally, Ivan's son). He has shown he knows exactly what do with a savvy, genuinely funny script with his two mentioned movies, and something about his style just seems to "click" with the Ghostbusters universe.

To finish, Ramis took some time to shoot down of the casting rumors that have been floating around for a good while now:

"Here's how old the rumors are," Ramis said. "Chris Farley was one of the rumors. It was going to be Chris Farley, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock."

With that last comment, Ramis is showing just how far back all of the speculation, rumors, hopes... heck, even dreams, about another Ghostbusters film have been going on. However who can blame hopeful fans? The original Ghostbusters film is an utter classic and a lot of people even like the second one simply because "it's a Ghostbusters movie." Just the simple notion of a third film is inevitably going to have people excited because they get to return to a world that they know and love, and hopefully, like Ramis has been talking about above, get to see what the original Ghostbusters are up to.

I know I certainly do...

What are your thoughts on a Ghostbusters 3? Would you like to see the original cast come back for a third go at it or should they continue with completely new people?

Source: MTV