To recap, rumors of a third Ghostbusters movie have been circulating since at least 2008. Then Ivan Reitman confirmed rumors that he’d direct it. They need Bill Murray to sign off the script before they can go ahead with it, and Murray told Howard Stern back in February that the script was on his desk, but he hadn’t got around to reading it yet. Then Dan Aykroyd (when he wasn’t busy sharing his fascinating conspiracy theories) went on “The Dennis Miller Show” (which is a real thing, we guess) to claim “Ghostbusters 3 is filming in 2012″ along with a lot of other things of questionable veracity.

Now the journalistic bastion that is The National Enquirer claims Murray finally read the script and responded by sending a box to Aykroyd and Harold Ramis filled with a shredded bits of the script and a note that read, “No one wants to pay money to see fat, old men chasing ghosts!” Since this is coming from a tabloid and phrased in that ridiculous, breathy, inexplicably-capitalizing-entire-words-midsentence writing style, I have trouble taking this seriously. Let’s sum it up this way:

Things we know about Bill Murray:

• He will crash your house party.
• He will crash your karaoke party.
• Dude loves to party.
• He headbutted McG.
• He will walk up to you in a restaurant, steal a french fry off your plate, then say, “No one will ever believe you.”
• He is awesome.

Things that may be true about Bill Murray:

• He may have access to a cross-cut shredder.
• He may be the last sane man in Hollywood.
• He may have just approached our inner child with fond memories of Ghostbusters and said, “Show me where the bullies are.”

This one’s been rumored awhile, and Bill Murray finally confirmed it. MailOnSunday got a great interview with Murray, who stated his conditions for returning to the franchise and gave a frank opinion on the second movie:

I’ll come back in Ghostbusters 3 only if I get to be a ghost.  I said to them, “I’ll do it if you kill me off in the first reel.”  So, now they are going to have me as a ghost in the film.  The first 45 minutes of the original “Ghostbusters” is some of the funniest stuff ever made.  The second one was disappointing, because the special-effects guys took over.  I had something like two scenes– and they’re the only funny ones in the movie.

Ghostbusters 2, you just got served.  Anyway, the only thing cooler than a Bill Murray ghost would be a Bill Murray ghost who crashes parties.  I would let that guy borrow my car to buy a kilo.  I’d even let him park it outside the Staples Center during Lakers finals.

A year ago IGN reported Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (co-executive producers of ”The Office”) would be writing the Ghostbusters 3 screenplay, and Harold Ramis told The Chicago Tribune that the old ghostbusters will appear in the film in some mentor capacity alongside new, young ghostbusters (please not Zac Efron or anyone from Twilight).  He also said the film would show the grown-up son of Sigourney Weaver’s character (I hope he looks like Rick Moranis). Now HEEB has interviewed Harold Ramis and asked how the project is going:

Now, 25 years after the original, there seems to be some willingness to proceed and apparently a substantial public appetite for a sequel. We’ll introduce some new young Ghostbusters, and all the old guys will be in it, too. Think Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future . . . GB3 is progressing with plans to shoot next summer and release in 2011.

It’s been 25 years?  Whoa.  Even more surreal, Michael Cera is rumored to have asked Ramis for a part in GB3 during the filming of Year One.  The only reboot I want to see Michael Cera in is an Arrested Development movie or TV show or porn spinoff or frozen banana commercial.  I’d take anything at this point.  Even the last two combined, as long as Ron Howard narrates.