No matter how hard we try, we can’t get away from any news about Ghostbusters 3. A couple of weeks back Ghostbusters star we reported that Dan Aykroyd was saying that they were bringing in a new writer for the film. Now we didn’t know if this was lip service to an always nagging question or if it was true. And if it was true, would they start with a fresh story or would they use the script written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky.

Now we can confirm a couple of things. First, yes, they are bringing in a new writer. Men In Black III and Tropic Thunder scribe Etan Cohen (not to be confused with Ethan Coen) has been brought in to do a couple of rewrites on the script that Eisenberg and Stupnitsky wrote back in 2008.

If you thought the script issues for Men in Black III were bad, then you haven’t heard of the kinds of issues that the Ghostbusters 3 script is going through. One of the driving forces that is preventing this movie from happening is the claim that Bill Murray didn’t like the script written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. In fact, this issue dragged on for so long, Sony had to put it on hold until they could get it right.

But in a surprise move, Murray said he was willing to give Ghostbusters 3 another go. Well it appears that Eisenberg and Stupnitsky listened, or Sony did, as there is a new writing staff on board that will pen the script that will hopefully become Ghostbusters 3.

Much like the R-rated Spawn movie Todd McFarlane keeps saying is going to happen but most likely never will, Ghostbusters 3 is a movie that is now apparently being kept barely alive through the sheer force of will belonging to the most vocal of its proponents, Dan Aykroyd. Ivan Reitman, the director of the first two Ghostbusters movies, and Harold Ramis, Aykroyd’s co-star and co-writer on the original 1984 comedy blockbuster and its less-successful 1989 sequel, have openly expressed interest in doing a third movie, while Bad Teacher scribes Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg have written a screenplay that would feature the original Ghostbusters passing their proton packs on to successors who would be younger and more accessible to modern movie comedy audiences.

We’ve all been jumping for joy since it was announced last week that Sony/Columbia was moving forward with a third Ghostbusters film that would reunite the original cast of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson.

But there’s also been talk that Ghostbusters 3 would really center on the next generation of ghostbusters, possibly even played by some of the young actors who regularly appear in the Judd Apatow films.

So, if the new film — to be penned by Office scribes Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky — will star a new, younger cast, what role will the original four ghostbusters play?

Ghostbusters star Harold Ramis — whose upcoming comedy Year One was scripted by Eisenberg and Stupnitsky, and produced by Apatow — revealed in an email to the Chicago Tribune’s Pop Machine that the idea is to have the original ghostbusters be mentors to their successors.

There’s been a Ghostbusters 3 rumor for years now that crops up every 3-6 months only to be immediately shot down.

Late last year, the word was that the only new Ghostbusters we were sure to get would be in the form of a video game from Vivendi Games. Prior to that there was star Dan Aykroyd’s script for Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent, which languished in limbo reportedly because of monetary difficulties in getting some original castmembers to return.

That might not be a problem anymore, as the trades are now reporting that Columbia Pictures has brought on Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky — who write and produce for NBC’s The Office — to pen the script for a third film which would reunite original cast of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson. None of the original cast has officially signed on for a new film at this time.