Comedy All-star Team Assembled for New "Ghostbusters" Movie

It has been 25 years since Ghostbusters was released in theaters, and 20 years since the sequel, Ghostbusters II. Now, Columbia Pictures is moving ahead with a third Ghostbusters movie, and the list of talent - on screen and behind the scenes - reads like a who's who of Hollywood comedy.

Harold Ramis, who wrote the first two movies and starred as Dr. Egon Spengler, recently confirmed that co-stars Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd will return in the soles of Dr. Peter Venkman and Dr. Raymond Stantz.

"Bill Murray is just waiting for the truckload of money to arrive to get him out of his office," Ramis told MTV. "We're all going to be in it in different kinds of roles. We're going to be the sage mentors. There are going to be young Ghostbusters."

While the cast of new, younger ghost-busting scientists has not been chosen, the line-up of behind-the-scenes talent is winding up the rumor mill around the industry.

The hottest comedy producer-director in Hollywood these days is Judd Apatow, and Columbia announced that they've signed him to put together Ghostbusters 3. Apatow is the man behind a string of recent R-rated comedy hits like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Apatow often works with a circle of actors that includes some of comedy's rising stars. Does that mean hilarious young comic actors like Paul Rudd, Michael Cera, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Jason Segal could be donning the Ghostbuster jumpsuits?

Apatow also produced a string of Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly movies, including Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Would either - or both - of them be included in this project?

But there are more A-list comedy veterans attached to the film as well. Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, two writer/producers on the smash TV hit The Office are writing the Ghostbusters 3 screenplay. That opens up another range of casting possibilities. The two could use their connections to bring Steve Carell or Jenna Fischer on board? Both have previously worked with Apatow in The 40-Year Old Virgin and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, respectively.

Regardless of whom the new cast members turn out to be, everyone associated with the movie will have big shoes to fill.

The original Ghostbusters was the biggest box-office comedy of the 1980s and, at having grossed nearly $240 million, one of the top ten movies of all time after its initial release. The sequel debuted to what were, at the time, the biggest three-day opening grosses ever.

But its legacy is more than the money it earned. The American Film Institute ranked it among the 30 top comedies of all time, and Entertainment Weekly named it the funniest movie of the past 25 years. It will be a challenge to live up to those standards - but if any team could meet those expectations, it's the one that Columbia has announced for this project.

Eric Ditzian, "Original 'Ghostbusters' Cast Onboard For Reboot, Harold Ramis Says", MTV.com