Ghostbusters 3 has begun filming in Canada, and some very juicy reports are now arriving from the set. The pic is being billed as a true continuation of the story of the first two movies, and will feature the surviving original cast returning to the roles they made iconic.
We’ve heard that Bill Murray has been spotted on location already and while I don’t believe there’s yet been any photographs of him in costume as Peter Venkman, we do now have some pictures of one of the true stars of the franchise: Ecto-1, the Ghostbusters’ eye-catching vehicle, bristling with paranormal detection equipment and popping up in one form or another in every iteration of the series.
If you’ll recall, the car was the centre of the first teaser for the movie, which showed it rusting under a tarpaulin in a barn. Well, it’s officially out of the barn and onto the streets and you can check out some set pictures by way of TMZ down below:
As you can tell, Ecto-1 has seen better days. Appropriately for a car that’s spent a long time sitting unused in a barn, it’s filthy and rusted (and it should be remembered that the vehicle was already a creaky rust bucket when Ray Stantz purchased it in 1984). Judging from these pictures though, it seems it’s being pressed back into service.
But in what might be a minor continuity flub, this Ecto-1 is in the configuration seen in Ghostbusters even though by the time of the sequel, the car had been completely overhauled and was known as Ecto-1a. There are no signs of the Ghostbusters II equipment here, so either the team decided to retrofit the car or they’ve retconned Ecto-1 and Ecto-1a into separate vehicles.
I guess only true Ghostbusters fans will care about this distinction, but if director Jason Reitman really is promising a love letter to the original movies, then they’d better get the little things right.