Arnold Schwarzenegger is a movie star. 

Actors disappear into their characters and the world of their films.  Riding their charisma, movie stars dictate both and are, to a certain extent, themselves onscreen.  The almost eight years Schwarzenegger spent as the improbable Governor of California meant that he was limited exclusively to brief cameo roles, but now that his gubernatorial tenure is over and he's kept his head low after a public scandal, Arnold Schwarzenegger is once again properly starring in action movies.

In The Last Stand, Schwarzenegger plays a small town sheriff who wrangles the town's eccentrics to stop a wanted drug lord from making it to the U.S./Mexico border.  IAR's Jami Philbrick participated in the movie's press conference, and we'll have plenty more The Last Stand goodies coming your way closer to its January 18th release.  Today, we're looking further into the future.  While promoting his first cinematic vehicle since Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Schwarzenegger shed some light on his new Conan adventure, the Twins sequel Triplets, and even the possibility of teaming up with fellow muscle-mountain Dwayne Johnson.

It's the end of another year, and that means innumerable lists of the best movies to grace screens in 2012, as well as the continued talk of awards season.  With all that laudatory black-slapping for movies released over the last year, isn't it only fair that there's a list commending movies that haven't actually been made?

That would be the Black List, an annual compilation of screenplays that have yet to be produced.  The 2012 Black List has been announced, and it's the usual hodgepodge of fare that runs the gamut from clever to exciting, tiresome, and gimmicky, along with a few scripts that are headed to actual production.

The halting, graceless dance of updates on Ghostbusters 3 continues, as it has done for years and will likely do long after we're all dead.  When the necromancers roam a scorched, post-apocalyptic Earth, there will somehow still be news stories reporting that a second sequel to the 1984 classic Ghostbusters is imminent, only to be countered by news that New York's foremost paranormal investigators won't be returning any time soon.

It's Halloween time, so parties across the nation will shortly showcase many a sexy Ghostbuster costume, but if a quick update is to be believed, then by this time next year, the long-discussed, mercifully unmade Ghostbusters 3 may well have completed principal photography.

It's a dance that's been going on ceaselessly for years, but that also feels somehow timeless: Dan Aykroyd says something hopeful about a second sequel to the 1984 slice of perfection Ghostbusters, only to have Bill Murray continue to express total disinterest, as is his inimitable style.  Now, somewhat inexplicably, Aykroyd has changed the steps to this familiar dance, saying that Ghostbusters 3 is indeed gaining momentum, but will happen without Murray.

Last week, we heard news – vague at first then more solid a day later – that the classic supernatural comedy Ghostbusters would be returning to theaters for a seasonally-appropriate Halloween re-release across this nation of ours, which should prompt plenty of revealing Ghostbusters costumes, since there is no costume that cannot be converted into a sexy variation.  Now, Sony Pictures has revealed full details on what is likely an attempt to make some cash while gauging public interest in Ghostbusters 3, the hypothetical sequel that Bill Murray has been holding up for some time.

Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson will once again strap on their proton packs and trap some ghouls at a theater near you not on Halloween itself, but on three consecutive Thursdays beginning on October 13th and extending through the 27th.  It'll be just one showing every day at approximately 500 theaters.

Halloween is a holiday that anyone, aside from religious fundamentalists afraid of occult hokum, can enjoy fully.  Kids get pillowcases full of free candy, adolescents get to egg and teepee houses, adults get to drink and enjoy revealing costumes.  It's all good.  A new rumor suggests that this year, there will be even greater incentive for attention-getting women to add "sexy Ghostbuster" to their repertoire of arbitrarily salacious costumes, since word on the interwebs is that Ghostbusters will be returning to theaters for a theatrical re-release on All Hallows' Eve.

You gotta hand it to Dan Aykroyd.  The man was one of the original Not Ready for Prime-Time Players on Saturday Night Live, he's had a career in film and television for over 35 years, he's a champion for paranormal investigation, he co-wrote and starred in Ghostbusters, and he makes a damn fine vodka that comes in a cool crystal skull bottle.  Not only that, but the man has been trying to get a third Ghostbusters made with dogged determination since the 1990's, and he's showing no signs of giving up anytime soon.  As he often does, Aykroyd has publicly promised that Ghostbusters III will go ahead, with the original crew handing off their proton packs to a new generation.  And if it does, it might just do so without Bill Murray.

If you’ve never heard of director Will Gluck, then learn his name now because he is one filmmaker that you will be hearing from for a very long time. Gluck first made a name for himself as a feature film director last year with his sophomore outing Easy A starring Emma Stone, which went on to become both a critical and box office success. His recent release Friends with Benefits, has received positive reviews and earned almost $20 million in its debut last weekend despite opening opposite Captain America: The First Avenger on the second weekend of Potter-mania. All things considered, Gluck is well on his way to becoming one of the most interesting and unexpected mainstream directors working in the industry today.

Will Gluck began his career on TV writing for such short-lived but popular shows as Grosse Pointe, and Andy Richter Controls the Universe, as well as creating series like Luis, and The Loop. He made the jump to the big screen by helming the collegiate comedy Fired Up in 2009 before producing and directing Easy A, and eventually Friends with Benefits. His newest outing, the “will they or won’t they” comedy Friends with Benefits starring Justin Timberlake (The Social Network), and Mila Kunis (Black Swan), hit theaters on July 22nd and features the two sexy stars as platonic friends who engage in the age old experiment to see if acquaintances of the opposite sex can sleep together with out letting their emotions get in the way of their friendship.

Not a week goes by where I don't hear talk about a third Ghostbusters film happening soon.  Especially since The Office writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupinsky came aboard to write the screenplay for Sony, it just won't stop coming up.  Director Ivan Reitman or Dan Aykroyd will make a comment about the potential film's progress, it gets picked up and printed everywhere, and seemingly everyone talks about Ghostbusters 3 as if it's actually a good idea.  Well, thankfully for sensible people everywhere, Bill Murray is the major obstacle to the film getting made, and he seems pretty happy to keep up the good work.

Angie Han, who brings a feminine touch to the operation over at Slashfilm, has a progress report on various possible sequels in which she recaps some comments from Murray on yesterday's The Howard Stern Show.  Murray confirms that Sony isn't going ahead without him, and he has yet to read the script.  he says, “Yeah, I guess I’m the problem. Before I was an asset, now I’m a problem. There’s a script somewhere, but I haven’t read it yet.”

Being a rigorous interviewer, Stern inquires further, asking, “Why haven’t you read it? Is it because you think it’s a bullshit idea? In other words, Ghostbusters has had its time and you did a remarkable job with that and you’ve moved on?”  To that, Murray replies, “There’s a little bit of that. I only made one sequel and it was Ghostbusters 2 and it didn’t end up the way it was presented.”

First off, I love me some Bill Murray.  If you can find a funnier cinematic image than his comb-over unraveling as Ernie McCracken in Kingpin, I will laugh at that image and slap you heartily on the back. 

Second off, his lack of enthusiasm for Ghostbusters 3 makes me love Bill Murray even more.  It's not that ghostbusting doesn't make me feel good; Ghostbusters is one of those movies that I love so dearly that it's difficult to see as anything but perfect, and it's exactly that love keeping me wary of another round.  Unless you have a financial stake in it, Ghostbusters 3 is entirely unnecessary, except as yet another masturbatory exercise in nostalgia.  Resurrecting a franchise twenty years down the line generally does not turn out well, anyways, as anyone who hasn't repressed all memory of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will tell you between crying jags.

For realsies, everybody.  Do you really believe that Ghostbusters 3 could possibly improve upon the original film?  Also, if someone asks you if you're a god, what do you say?

Source: Slashfilm