So that headline kind of says it all, doesn't it? Dan Aykroyd actually thinks that, should Bill Murray not want to proceed with Ghostbusters 3, the role of Peter Venkman might be recast with another actor. Because that makes sense; the talent of Murray is so commonplace and trite that you can just throw Nick Swardson into the movie and no one will notice.
To be fair, that little tidbit is from a report in Empire magazine, and it's not a direct quote. This is what they say:
Even more intriguingly, Aykroyd hinted that Bill Murray may not return as Peter Venkman, and that the character could be played by a different actor, a la Jack Ryan.
So that could be something that Aykroyd said in jest, only to be stunned now that it's being reported on all over the internet, or it could be something that he's seriously considering. I've always heard that Murray has some amount of control over the production of Ghostbusters 3, and that it really can't proceed without him, but I guess at some point he might be willing to just take a check and let everyone else go ahead and do their thing. One would have to imagine that Aykroyd and Harold Ramis have enough respect for Murray to at least kill off his character rather than re-casting him; I'd be willing to bet that Aykroyd will issue some kind of "that's crazy and I never said it" statement fairly soon. Although one has to remember that this is the same man who thought Blues Brothers 2000 was a good idea.
If we assume that Bill Murray had to be re-cast in GB3, who on earth would you pick to fill his shoes? Does such a man exist?
Jim Carey is a show stopper........or errrr ummmm Mark Walberg....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
They should have done that right in the early 90s, after GB2. Dropping Bill Murray when they saw he would never accept/keep delaying part 3...