Rumors circulate like wildfire within the industry. Sometimes it can be hard to tell where they've come from. Like the one that made the rounds Tuesday night claiming Max Landis is in line to write Ghostbusters 3. Because no one told Max Landis.
Last night, a report from Nikki Finke (since deleted) announced that Landis was doing a three-week "polish" on the existing Ghostbusters 3 script. This was news to the loquacious Landis, who took to Twitter to debunk this in his own chatty way.
As you can see, Landis is an extremely busy dude, currently making his directorial debut on Me Him Her while working on several scripts . Amusingly, Landis later suggested he's been doing polishes on various massive properties in secret (which is common – screenwriters often moonlight on bigger films without the public knowing), but Ghostbusters 3 and Wonder Woman (was this a rumor?) are apparently not amongst those seeking the Landis touch. Yet.
Another story recently reported by Finke was the existence of Father Of The Bride 3. Steve Martin's character was to return, this time coping with his gay son's upcoming nuptials, and getting kicked out of the house by his wife. This was news to Martin, who swiftly took to Twitter to also debunk this story.
The industry will no doubt rush to condemn Nikki Finke for beginning her site with such "inaccurate" rumors. Of course, they neglect to understand the various machinations of moviemaking. There is little doubt these ideas have been discussed amongst these studios: Max Landis is the hot young genre screenwriter and a third Father Of The Bride makes a good amount of sense. But these might also be board room discussions, and not actual movie studio decisions. Lots of movies get released each year by studios. Imagine how many of those are simply discussed internally, only to fall by the wayside? Imagine how many bad movies DON'T get made? Finke's Ghostbusters 3 and Father Of The Bride 3 stories may not be true, but they might not necessarily be false either.
