Dan Aykroyd Grilled on His New 'Ghostbusters' Game

Back in the summer of 1984, the world was captivated by a trio of trash-talking “scientists” who became Manhattan’s only hope against an angry, Godzilla-sized Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. “Ghostbusters” went on to make nearly $350 million worldwide. Five years later, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson re-teamed for a sequel, which grossed over $215 million worldwide. Since then, there have been animated cartoons and not much else. Until now.

Aykroyd has gathered most of the original troops -- only Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis abstained -- for Atari’s “Ghostbusters: The Videogame,” which comes out Tuesday, and plays out like the now-in-development third movie. Here, the 56-year-old actor talks about everything from the new Hollywood to his latest “Ghostbusters” offshoot to real-life gay ghostbusting.


How much collaboration did you have with Harold Ramis and Bill Murray on the game?
We voiced it separately. I got the draft, spoke with Harold. We went back and forth. He did his edit. I did mine. Gave it back to them. They did theirs and then we both polished it. Then he did separate voice. I did separate voice, and Billy did separate voice.

You didn't all get in a room and do it together?
Billy’s making a movie. He’s the Murricane Man. How do you contain energy like that? You'd need some kind of a super vanadium neck charged with a polarity that could pulse and phase that we haven't been able to master yet in electronics to contain the energy of the Murricane. And I spend my life on the road.

My family comes with me, like the Five Little Foys --remember that movie with Bob Hope? I play casinos, corporate events. We do the Blues Brothers, and my kids come with me -- they wear black dresses and put earplugs in and dance. So it was hard to pin us all down.

You’ve talked about a third “Ghostbusters” movie …
Well, I think this movie is going to be written. But we don't know until it is written. In the meantime, the game is real, and to me it’s the third movie because now it's the only thing that exists -- that depicts the characters in a new adventure and in a new light and with that great feeling of Manhattan. They've done a tremendous job of showing the city. They've done everything that one would expect in a game.

I think the third movie might be a sequel to this. Now you have them acting hand-in-hand, and it’s interactive, if you will. So the third movie, if it is a reality, I'm sure a concept for a game will come out of that and then that game may feed to a story for a fourth one. It's just nice that there's this creative stimuli going on in Hollywood through the gaming community.

 

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