With one hit movie under their belts this year with “The Lego Movie,” and another likely champ in “22 Jump Street” opening this weekend (review here), Hollywood is Phil Lord and Chris Miller‘s oyster at the moment. Meaning, that they can basically do whatever they want. So it’s no surprise they are getting scripts and projects tossed their way, so it wasn’t a total shock when Sony offered them the long-developing “Ghostbusters 3.” The story made headlines, but the pair quickly turned it down, but not for the reasons you might think.
Citing fatigue as one reason they decided to say no to the job, nevertheless, Lord and Miller still think there is a lot of fuel in the tank left in the series. “I think that there’s a good ‘Ghostbusters’ movie out there. It’s such a fun franchise. Obviously, we don’t have the same attitude as people who hate stuff before it’s even made,” Lord told ScreenCrush. “It’s a fun idea and it’s a fun world and I think it will work.”
Speaking of fun, the duo are also involved in the brewing sequel to “The Lego Movie” (the treatment is being worked on now, with a script to be delivered in the fall) and they’re hoping that Marvel will get into the spirit of things and allow their characters to appear alongside the other brands (notably DC Comics) in the next effort. “They don’t need LEGO to make their movies successful,” Miller conceded to ComingSoon. But while there is legal stuff to work out for something like that happen, Lord hopes Marvel sees the merit. “Hopefully it will be like another ‘[Who Framed] Roger Rabbit‘ situation where, ‘Of course, we’d love to be a part of this,’ but who knows?”
And in the same vein of “who knows,” is talk of a “Clone High” movie, with the animated show helping get Lord and Miller make their mark. The oddball show only lasted a single season, but the cult following that has developed means there has been discussions of a movie. “We talk very regularly now with [co-creator] Bill [Lawrence] every few months or so, we talk about ‘How are we going to get this back in whatever form we can?’ We get our lawyers to talk to each other, and business affairs people to talk to each other. It’s very complicated,” Miller told Collider. “It’s very hard (laughs). Because it’s at Viacom/MTV, we have a TV deal at Fox, he has a TV deal at Warner Bros. It’s all very complicated, and then it’s ‘should we do a movie, or a TV show, or whatever?’ But, we’re working on it! It’s hard!”
In short, Lord and Miller have a lot of irons in the fire, and seem to be passionate about all of them. And if there’s anyone in town who could convince Marvel and DC to get along for the sake of an animated movie, we’d wager it’s them.
