Ghostbusters 3 To Feature Peter Venkman's Love Child? Rick Moranis To Come Out Of Retirement?

It has been a while since we've gotten a real Ghostbusters 3 update. Last we heard, Office / Year One scribes Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg had turned in a script, Ivan Reitman will return to direct, but Bill Murray is the sole holdout (initially telling the producers that he would only be part of the film if they killed him off. The screenwriters did just that, and had his character in the film as a ghost, but Murray appears to be completely uninterested in the sequel), while Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd claim the film will be in theaters for either Christmas 2011 or 2012. We also know that the story apparently begins as the paranormal researchers "reopen" their ghost removal service after it has been closed for years, and the the film will introduce a new generation of Ghostbusters, who will be trained/mentored by the original crew.

Back in December 2008, Sigourney Weaver suggested that her character Dana Barrett's baby Oscar should be one of the new Ghostbusters in the in development Ghostbusters 3. At the time, I thought that the addition of Dana's offspring (and Peter's potential step-son?) would be an interesting way to tie together the new team with the old. Now we have learned that the plans actually call for Oscar to suit up as one of the new Ghostbusters, but there is a bit of canon-bending with the storyline.

Bloody Disgusting is reporting that in the upcoming sequel it will be revealed up front that Dana's son Oscar is in fact Peter Vankman's child. In the original film it is never clear who Oscar's father is, but it was inferred that it is not Peter's kid. This comes from the GBFans FAQ:

First off, it's not Louis Tully. Oscar is not the by product of Zuul and Vinz Clortho mating. There is five years between the movies. Oscar is about eight months or so old in GB2. Basic biology says that's impossible The real answer has never been 100% established onscreen or in any officially endorsed materials, but Sigourney Weaver (1989 on The Arsenio Hall Show) and Joe Medjuck (in the 1999 Ghostbusters DVD) both state, however, that Oscar's father is the violinist seen with Dana in one scene in GB1, whom Venkman calls "The Stiff" (and Sigourney referred to as "Mister Nose Spray"). He's never given a name onscreen (he's simply referred to as "Violinist" in the GB1 credits), but in the GB1 novelization he's referred to as Andre Wallance, which indicates that Dana's son's birth name is presumed to be Oscar Wallance.

So it seems they are changing Ghostbusters canon a bit, and Oscar, it turns out, was Peter's love-child, which he obviously wasn't told about due to the commitment issues that led to his breakup with Dana. In Ghostbusters 3, Oscar is now a 21-year-old ready to chase and trap Ghosts, just like his father did. The other big bit of news coming from BD, is that Rick Moranis is expected to come out of retirement for the film, and Sigourney Weaver are expected to return as well.

Moranis is a big surprise as he retired from the business a few years after the 1991 loss of his wife, Anne, to liver cancer. He later explained that he "pulled out of making movies in about '96 or '97. I'm a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn't miss it." Other than some voice work on a couple Disney films, Moranis hasn't appeared in a wide big screen release since 1996's Big Bully.

Moranis portrayed Sigourney Weaver's Manhattan neighbor Louis Tully in the original film and 1989 sequel. Rick even refused to participate in the 2008 Ghostbusters video game, although Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, Annie Potts and William Atherton provided voices. Ramis has said that Moranis won't be part of Ghostbusters 3: "Rick has retired from show business. But everyone else says they'll do it." May-be something has changed?