The internets lied to you about Ghostbusters 3

The internets lied to you about Ghostbusters 3

May 22

I’ve been running a Ghostbusters fansite for just under 10 years. Initially Ghostbusters was just a nerdy incentive to learn HTML. Then it became a personal challenge – to keep a website running consistantly, while others would come and go. Now it’s just habit. The point is, if they were going to make a third Ghostbusters movie and you wanted to double check the information, who ya gonna call? (Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)

Well, here we are – the net is in an uproar over Ghostbusters 3. But it’s nothing more than bad journalism, amplified by lazy blog paraphrasing, and the desperate desires (both for and against a third film) of fankids.

Ever since the second movie hit theaters, reporters have always asked the creators of the franchise if there’s going to be a third. Shortly after the first sequel, that answer was, “we’ll see.” Then one day, years ago, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd started dropping hints that they had a script and it was about the Ghostbusters travelling to an alternate Earth, a literal hell on Earth.

Time past, no movie. Everytime either of them would mention it, fans would go spastic, assuming that if they were mentioning it, it must be just around the corner. It was at this point I first learned the power of mixing fandom and the internet. The movie would be mentioned, and my inbox would flood with emails.

THEY MAKE GHOSTBUTSERS 3!!!11

The body of the email would sometimes include a link (some people didn’t get the concept of providing references) and always contain a demand that I post the information. Sometimes I’d actually post something, though typically a short note that Ramis, or Aykroyd, or director Ivan Reitman had made some mention about the third film. Over time I reduced even those posts to just those items that provided some new insight into the premise of the film.

Then, big news. Bad news. Dan Aykroyd had a falling out with Sony and/or Columbia pictures (it was never very clear with whom, though Sony owns Columbia, so the line is blurry), a falling out so bad that he either left or was asked to leave his production offices on the Columbia lot. Well, not a good sign for a third film. All this on top of the fact Bill Murray did NOT want to do another movie (Murray doesn’t do sequels, Ghostbusters 2 being the first and only proper sequel he’s ever done) and the script budget was apparently astronomical in estimation (the effects plus an all-star cast would make it a massive investment.)

That should have been that. Until last November.

While promoting Ice Harvest, his new dark comedy, Harold Ramis spoke with InFocus magazine and was, as it typical, asked about the third movie. Ramis recounted a few known facts – the movie would be see the boys in grey side-step to the Hell version of New York and the script would see the addition of newer, younger busters. One interesting fact was a name drop by Ramis – back when they’d last worked hard on getting the film greenlit, they’d discussed casting Ben Stiller (earlier rumours and reports included the supposed casting of Chris Farley, Chris Tucker, and just about anyone that had a name.) But at the end of his comments, Ramis admitted that this was all a while ago.

I hadn’t read this article until later, but I’d like to put things chronologically – InFocus interview happens, nothing new. Then one morning in November, my inbox explodes – the spelling more atrocious and the demands more pointed. Ghostbusters 3 get made, motherfucker, PRINT THAT SHIT!

A pattern emerged – a handful of sites, most notably Hollywood.com, had said that Ramis, in an interview with InFocus magazine, claimed that the movie was in production and Ben Stiller was going to star. It’s at this point I read the InFocus interview and had anyone bothered, they’d see that the tenses in the Hollywood.com article and the tenses in the interview were completely different. Where had Hollywood.com gotten the idea that Ramis was saying they were working on the movie right now?

I sniffed around and noticed that a number of similar postings on other sites, including MSN, Yahoo news, etc. all credited WENN – World Entertainment News Network. An entertainment newswire. For whatever reason, they presented the InFocus interview in a false manner. Their subscribers, including a lot of large internet news sites, printed it verbatim (after all, you subscribe to a newswire, you’re not supposed to have to fact check them.) This in turn was seen as undeniable proof by legions of fans (all of whom never bothered to find the original InFocus interview) and printed in dozens of blogs, all of which made their way into my mailbox.

I never reported that Ramis was working on the third film – I knew he wasn’t and I knew how the whole mess had started, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have to slog through a couple of weeks of hurt feelings – here’s the thing kids. When someone spends ten years reporting all Ghostbusters related news, you can’t take it personal when they turn down your super-hot, extra-amazing information. They just know better.

Whew. Right? No.

Last week, IGN… IGN! posted an item about Ghostbusters 3, based on the Hollywood.com article from November. No new development, they just posted it. They linked to Hollywood.com after stating that the report was “attributed to InFocus magazine”, and everyone went and read that article, and the whole thing started all over. Nobody read the InFocus article, which IGN could have found and linked to (after all, I found it) everyone took the WENN report at face value, the blogs picked up on it… the whole thing has now gotten so crazy that a number of newspapers, including the New York Times and a couple of UK newspapers, have just lifted the story. Canada’s eTalk Daily lifted it verbatim.

And I’m back in hell. My inbox is filled with people demanding I report this amazing news. When I explain why I won’t, they want to know why I think they’re stupid. Some have even gone so far as to say that I hate Ghostbusters and that I’m not a true fan.

Well, they’re right – if they’re the true fans, I don’t want in the club.

I have no real point to this long diatribe, I just want to lay it out as often as possible. You can’t believe everything you read – doubly so if it’s on the internet. In fact, as long as the internet is in existance, just don’t trust anything you read anywhere – it’s safe to assume it was probably tainted by the web somewhere along the line. The infoweb is great for reference. Then it’s up to you pick up a book and double check.

Or, if it’s about Ghostbusters, just ask me. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.