Max Landis' 'Ghostbusters 3' Treatment Now Online; Makes Original Films A Trilogy

Max Landis isn't writing Ghostbusters 3. Ghostbusters 3 doesn't even exist, really. Sony is, in fact, moving head with a rebooted Ghostbusters directed by Paul Feig and are trying to do a second film in that universe, starring Channing Tatum. And while the minds behind the original franchise (Dan Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman) have their hands on these films, each will pretend 1984's Ghostbusters and 1989's Ghostbusters 2 never happened.

To some fans, not seeing a satisfying return of those characters trumps any good feelings about the franchise returning. Max Landis speaks to those people. The screenwriter and director took the fake news of him writing a sequel seriously, so he actually did. He never pitched it or showed it to anyone, but instead just used it as an exercise in creating a sequel, building mythology and more.

After all that, Landis has now put his Ghostbusters 3 treatment online for anyone to read. Find out more below.

The full Max Landis Ghostbusters pitch is at this link. It's pretty long, so we won't publish the whole thing here, just a quick excerpt to suck you in:

We start in the 1920s, where we witness cult leader Ivo Shandor proclaim the prophecy of the two comings of Gozer, one a failure, and the second thirty years later, to destroy the world. One of his followers speaks out, and is killed for his insubordination...becoming the spirit who is eventually known to us as Slimer.

Slam to 2016.

Ghostbusters was a national franchise, privately owned and government subsidized. But the lack of extradimensional invaders meant that there was ultimately a very limited amount of ghosts to bust, and the very optimistic national expansion slowly depleted the Buster's funds ("Did the Atlanta chapter really need a helicopter?"). The Ghostbusters remain iconic, but despite the merchandise, cartoon show, etc, the company itself is bankrupt, on the verge of collapse.

Only two houses remain open; there hasn't been a legitimate call in more than ten years. The original Busters are for the most part long gone; Venkman took the money and disappeared into seclusion, Winston Zeddemore quit the busters in 1991 and has since become a Richard Branson style billionaire, and Egon Spengler accidentally ascended to a higher plane of existence, leaving only the increasingly delusional Ray Stantz, who has run the company into the ground.

The New York Team is now comprised of Ted Becker, an earnest sweetheart living a dream born as he watched the Busters defeat Gozer as a little boy in 1985, Veronica Spengler, Egon's Very Egon-Like daughter who feels in turns respectful and resentful of the hole left in her world, Brian Quaid, a fast talking breezily confident self-proclaimed psychic with a chip on his shoulder, and Irwin Oberstein, a gearhead MIT kick-out metalhead who sees the Ghostbusters as the ultimate way to explore his punk rock ideas about quantum physics.

Landis takes his idea all the way through the conclusion. He says the idea follows "my own beliefs about trilogies. It is a completion of the cycle and themes started in the first film, updated for modern film standards. As such, it features a heightening of the first film's threat, as well as multiple action sequences, and deeper emotional through-lines for the characters."

Also cool, Landis has been on Twitter answering questions and doing some fan casting. Here who he'd cast for his LA and NY new teams:

What do you think of the Max Landis Ghostbusters pitch?