If there is one person who has always been behind the Ghostbusters franchise, it is star and writer Dan Aykroyd, and after Ghostbusters: Afterlife blew away expectations at the box office when it arrived in November there were obviously going to be questions over whether we will see the original team back again in the future. While Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson are now advancing on in years, they proved that they can still put on a show with their late arrival in the legacy sequel and it seems that no one should write off the possibility of another outing or three for the team just yet as Aykroyd says he has an idea for Ghostbusters 4, 5 and 6.

While the first two Ghostbusters movies created one of the most iconic franchises of the 1980s, a third movie planned for the early 1990s became stuck in development hell for so long that Sony finally decided that the only thing they could do was reboot the series with an all-new cast. That decision resulted in the 2016 Ghostbusters movie, and rather than remind ourselves too much of how it was received, we will just say that five years later Ghostbusters fans got to see the team they actually wanted to see busting ghosts back on screens again in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

While the new addition to the franchise featured an unexpected appearance by Harold Ramis’ Egon Spengler in ghost form, which considering the actor passed away a few years ago was both a tribute to the actor and a very well done plot device, it seems that Aykroyd’s ideas partly revolve around the deaths of his own character, or possibly more. But then again, he also suggests that it may be better to use the three original cast members while they are still alive.

“I'd like to die. I think Bill and I should be killed in the next one. Or, maybe we wait. Why not use the living Ghostbusters – Ernie, Billy and myself – for four, five, and six? Go until we're gone. Then there will be time for the tributes. Death is going to take us soon enough,” Aykroyd said when he appeared on USA Today.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife certainly sets up the possibility of a sequel, with a post-credit scene seeing Ernie Hudson’s Winston Zeddemore returning to the New York firehouse with ECTO-1, while he talks about how he will always be a Ghostbuster. In the final seconds, the camera pans down to the containment unit in the basement where a red light is flashing and we cut to black.

A sequel has not yet been green-lit, but director Jason Reitman, who took over the reins from his father Ivan, has certainly expressed an interest in continuing with the franchise, teasing that a further Ghostbusters sequel could feature Vigo the Carpathian, and Ernie Hudson has said in interviews that he would be more than happy to return again in a sequel. The fans have been given what they wanted once, so who is to say it won’t happen again?