Last we heard about the Hollywood remake of the British television series RentaGhost was that Russell Brand was involved and the production was off to try and find a writer to deliver something in the style of Beetlejuice and Gremlins.

Now, some ten months later on from the original story, the project still seems alive, not with Brand though, now it's with Ben Stiller.

Russell Brand is out, apparently because of the lack of success over the Arthur remake, and that was no surprise really you can't expect to live up to the stupendous talent of Dudley Moore.

Strange how that film would affect the chances of this one, for it's here that I can see potential, the television was well loved but the premise could be changed round rather well. A group of ghosts being rented out by a businessman to carry out tasks for the living, take that to Hollywood and we'll end up with something a lot smarter and probably darker, we'll see the group being rented out to scare people as only real ghosts can, I'm thinking along the lines of something like The Frighteners.

It could work well, and there's no baggage from the original series, not like the strength of Dudley Moore to live up to, so I don't buy that reason from Deadline. They do carry the news though that the writers of this version of RentaGhost are Tom Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, the writers of Night at the Museum, so not quite Gremlins or Bettlejuice, but not a bad choice either.

So it's from Brand to Ben Stiller in a story that could be Night at the Museum with ghosts instead of exhibits. Not a bad idea, but will it work? Will it get seen through to a final film? Personally I would have preferred something more akin to Frighteners and less another slapstick comedy.