Cancelled Movies: Ghostbusters Film Starring Chris Rock, Chris Farley And Ben Stiller Was Reportedly In Development

Everytime there's rumors of a new "Ghostbusters" film, fans always draw up their dream cast line-up. Prior to the release of Paul Feig's 2016 reboot, fans were clamoring for "Ghostbusters" team that included comedy's top stars of the time (particularly from the Judd Apatow-verse) like Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and Paul Rudd, among others. While we know that film never came to be, we did get a stacked cast of top comedians including Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones for the 2016 version of the movie, and Paul Rudd did end up in the cast of 2021's "Ghostbusters: Afterlife."

In the '90s, when a script called "Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent" was going around Hollywood, franchise co-creator and Egon Spengler himself, Harold Ramis, had a dream cast in mind for who he thought would take up the mantle for a new generation in that decade. According to an interview with Ramis on Morewhatnot, the late filmmaker and funnyman revealed he would have cast Chris Farley, Chris Rock, and Ben Stiller in a "Ghostbusters" for a '90s film. 

It seemed as if Chris Farley had been a part of the new lineup as Ray Stantz's nephew ever since Dan Aykroyd worked with him on "Tommy Boy." Both Chris Rock and Will Smith were talked about at one time or another through the long development of "Ghostbusters 3" for a Winston Zeddemore-type of role. Ben Stiller was a name that came up all the way through 2005 when the script was still being talked about.

The Ghostbusters Go to Hell concept could never get to the production stage

The sequel Chris Farley, Chris Rock, and Ben Stiller could have starred in would have been called "Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent" and was essentially a concept that featured the Ghostbusters going to hell, fighting the devil, and training a new generation to take over their supernatural business. 

Ghostbuster Harold Ramis talked to Morewhatnot about how he envisioned hell in the script. Ramis said, "My concept there was that Hell is a simultaneous reality, it's slightly out of phase with our reality. It's like a strobe, when our reality is on, hell kind of blinks off." He explained (sort of) how the team ends up in hell saying, "So what the Ghostbusters have to do is kind of a hitch step, you know when you try to get in step with somebody. The Ghostbusters had to technically skip one beat and then they're in Hell." 

The '90s concept was thrown out after nearly two decades of being stuck in development hell. Ramis directed a Judd Apatow-produced comedy called "Year One" in 2009 which starred Michael Cera and Jack Black, who of course also came up as names for Next-Gen Ghostbusters, from "The Office" writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg. Ramis brought on the writing duo to work on a new script for "Ghostbusters 3" Ramis said that he was interested in a new cast for the movie saying that he wanted to, "Bring a fresh generational spin to it. We were voices for our generation, popular voices, but this generation sounds different." "Ghostbusters 3" never ended up materializing, but fans now have "Ghostbusters: Afterlife 2" to look forward to later in 2023.

Credits: Looper