The greatest movies never made: Dan Aykroyd’s devilish Donald Trump film, ‘Ghostbusters III: Hellbent’
Before Ghostbusters was resurrected in 2016 in the form of Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy’s Answer the Call, a third entry in the beloved franchise had slogged its way through 27 years of development hell. After Ghostbusters II was released in 1989 and didn’t do quite as well as its modern classic predecessor – critically or commercially – it always seemed like something was holding the franchise back. This was a source of incredible frustration for die-hard fans and creator/star Dan Aykroyd, who repeatedly pushed to get the gang back together for a third entry. The closest he got to making it happen with the OG cast, though, was when he wrote Ghostbusters III: Hellbent – a story that sent the guys straight to hell.
As early as the press tour for Ghostbusters II, Aykroyd told Entertainment Weekly that he would love to make a third movie. He said, “I’m always ready. I’d love to work with these guys again, and I have ideas for stories. We’ll come back.” Bill Murray, though, in what would become a painfully recurring theme, wasn’t quite so sure. He quipped, “I think many things come in threes, but I think some things come in twos. Leopold and Loeb, Hitler and Mussolini. It’s a little early.”
To be fair, Ghostbusters was always more important to Ackroyd than Murray because it was his baby. He wrote the original script, reshaped and sharpened it alongside Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman into the 1984 movie fans know and love. Ackroyd had a great time establishing the universe Peter Venkman, Ray Stanz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore inhabited in the first movie, but the second one was a different story altogether. Unfortunately, it proved to be such a difficult experience that nobody involved was super keen to return for a third crack at the whip in the immediate aftermath.
Between 1989 and ’94, Columbia Pictures, Reitman, and Ackroyd floated the idea for a third movie a few times, but nothing took hold. Then Ackroyd starred with portly comic dynamo Chris Farley in 1996’s Tommy Boy, and a fire was lit under him again. He began imagining a movie that united the classic Ghostbusters crew with a young generation, including Farley and maybe even Will Smith. By February 1997, he had worked up a story treatment, and then various script drafts were written over the next few years.
Entitled Ghostbusters III: Hellbent, the script was sent to various parties at various points – including Bill Murray, who supposedly shredded it without reading a word, and sent a note to Ackroyd reading, “No one wants to pay money to see fat, old men chasing ghosts.” While it’s actually perfectly believable that the notoriously awkward, difficult-to-motivate Murray would have done something so cruel, Ackroyd denied it happened in 2012. He unequivocally told Empire magazine, “Bill Murray is not capable of such behaviour. This is simply something that would not be in his nature. We have a deep, private personal relationship that transcends business.”
What was the story that Ackroyd had been so inspired to create, though? Would it have brought something new and exciting to the Ghostbusters franchise? The answer, frustratingly for fans, is “Yes, probably.” The story would have featured three new team members and the classic team, and it saw them transported to a Hell dimension which occupies the same space as our reality. In essence, it means Hell is actually wherever you are in your dimension but populated by grotesque Hell-versions of people and places you know. In the case of the Ghostbusters, they are transported to a Hellish version of Manhattan called – wait for it, savour it – “Manhellton.”
The movie would have seen the Hellish Brooklyn Bridge overrun with cars of every era, which caused a neverending traffic jam. The Staten Island ferry is lorded over by demons who force travellers into the river at the end of their pitchforks. The Ghostbusters then find themselves on a mission to reach Lucifer Towers, a skyscraper on 59th Street and 5th Avenue, which is only three blocks from the real-life Trump Tower. Stunningly, the script described Lucifer, an obvious parody of Donald Trump, as someone who looks like Alec Baldwin. Did Ackroyd predict Baldwin’s brilliant Saturday Night Live Trump impression nearly two decades before it became a reality?
Amusingly, different script drafts brought Murray’s Venkman in and out of the story, as no one involved knew if he would ever actually commit to the project. In one incarnation, the only reference to Venkman is an aside saying he sent the Ghostbusters a postcard from Indonesia, where he has bought the rights to a local goldmine.
Sadly, the film would never be made. First, there was the tragic death of Farley in December 1997. Then, the project limped through various rewrites for the next decade until Sony finally busted the idea for good in 2007. We’re sure Ackroyd, in particular, was bummed out about it, but you can’t win ’em all. “Manhellton,” though. That would’ve been sweet.
