Ghostbusters 3 To Feature Peter Venkman’s Love Child? Rick Moranis To Come Out Of Retirement?
By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 30, 2010 3:08 pm EST
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.
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.
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.
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?
