Without Bill Murray, Meatballs wouldn't be the film that it is. As it turns out, that statement's true in more than one way. In fact, even director Ivan Reitman wasn't sure if Murray would actually show up for shooting, and he had no backup plan if he ditched the picture. But also, without Bill Murray, Meatballs wouldn't be much of a film – just a series of scenes involving random campers. Thankfully, for everyone, Bill Murray showed up, and a summer camp hit was born. As even Reitman openly, and fondly, admits, “I owe my career to him, frankly.”

IGN recently had a chance to sit down and chat with director Ivan Reitman to talk about Meatballs, his work with Bill Murray as well as several of the films he's got on deck. And, of course, the subject of Ghostbusters 3 came up as well.

Meatballs is really one of the most bizarre franchises. You started things with the first film, but then the franchise spiraled to some really odd places. Meatballs is host to some of the weirdest sequels I've ever seen. I know you weren't involved with those, but have you seen any of them?: No. I haven't seen any of them. I was really against them, honestly. My partners at the time had voted to do it, and I basically left the company by that point and really had nothing to do with them.Bill Murray had signed on to Meatballs at the last minute, right?Yes. I knew Bill because I had produced the National Lampoon Show two years earlier. That show had Gilda Radner, John Belushi and Harold Ramis, among others. This was long before Saturday Night Live or SCTV. These people were all my friends at this point. I was able to convert that show into what became Animal House, but the studio didn't let me direct Animal House because I had only directed one film, a comedy called. I wanted to do another film as a director so I called my friends to write this summer camp movie that became Meatballs.Was Bill involved at that point?We designed it for Bill. I knew Bill from [National Lampoon's] but no one had ever heard of him. He'd only been in a couple of sketches on SNL and wasn't a member of the company yet. I called him, though, and he said 'I'd rather play baseball or golf this summer.' But I kept calling him and I think he eventually took pity on me because he finally said 'yes' the day before I started shooting.Did you have a backup plan, in case he didn't show?I had no backup plan.Wow. I can't even fathom Meatballs without him. What would that movie have been like had he not showed up?[laughing] Probably a pretty mediocre movie, I'd think.Bill adds so much flavor to the film. Did he do a lot of improv?He's such a charismatic person, and on top of that he's as good of a writer as he is a performer. He really came up with some wonderful things. Some of the best lines in the film came right out of his brain. It was a great learning experience for me because what I realized was that I had this great resource here. I had to be nimble enough to be able to use this, and strong enough to shape it with the subplots and characters already in the story.Yeah, Murray's subplot with Chris Makepeace is touching. I know with my camp experience – both as a counselor and as a kid – there was always that one person you attached yourself to. It seemed Murray's relationship with Makepeace really evolved out of that same camaraderie, which comes off remarkably well on-screen.Yes! I was very lucky. I found Chris Makepeace in Toronto. It was his first movie, and he would do a number of movies after that. He's really likeable in the film. It became apparent as we were shooting and editing the film that his plot with Murray was really key to making the whole film work. We did a day's worth of additional shooting, little scenes between the two, that really filled out the film. And it ended up becoming the spine of the whole movie.Ghostbusters 3 has been long talked about, but it seems Bill Murray isn't very interested, or he's busy. If that didn't happen, would you still want to work with Bill Murray on another project?I would work with Bill any day of the week. [laughing] Any year. I really think he's one of the most talented people there is. I owe my career to him, frankly. You know, he has a reputation sometimes of being difficult to say 'yes,' but I think that's because he has very specific ideas of what he wants to do with his life, just like he did that summer when he was a total unknown and had no real prospects. He was still difficult to get on the movie, and has been on every one of our projects since, although we're very close on a personal level.I recall reading, from either you or Dan Aykroyd, that he's been golfing a lot as opposed to doing movie projects recently. It's interesting to see that, even with Meatballs, that was basically what he wanted to do back then, too.[laughing] He's gotten to be very good golfer over the past 30 years.Is there a hope he'll end up being in Ghostbusters 3?There's always a hope. But I don't know. We keep working on it. And I think some days he wakes up and thinks it would be fun to do that again, and some days he doesn't feel interested in it at all.You gotta get him on one of those good days.[laughing] We hope so.Here are Bill Murray's recent, rather candid thoughts on Ghosbusters 3, direct from the comedy legend during his June 7 appearance on Late Night with David Letterman:A few months back there was talk of you doing a big budget redo of Baywatch. Has there been any movement on that project?Yeah, we're getting very close on that – close to putting it into production.I also spoke with Arnold Schwarzenegger a few months back about him doing a sequel to Twins called Triplets. How involved in that process are you?I don't know, really. I've never met with anybody yet. It was an idea that was sort of concocted by DeVito and Schwarzenegger. I'll actually be meeting with the studio soon to find out more about it.Awesome. On a personal level, is Evolution coming to Blu-ray?I hope so! I hope all my movies eventually come to Blu-ray. There's a few over at Universal with Schwarzenegger that aren't out yet that I'd like to see. I just heard that Dave is coming to Blu-ray from Warner, which is very exciting.Dave is such a great film. One of my favorites.Thank you. I hear that a lot actually, and with the election season coming up, I was hoping they'd do it. I'll actually be checking the transfer for that one very soon. I'm looking forward to it.

Be sure to check out Meatballs on Blu-ray or On Demand when it premieres, for the first time in either format, on June 12, 2012, courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment. Also, check outof the disc!