Jason Reitman, the son of original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, has been hired to direct a “secret” new entry in the Ghostbusters series. According to Entertainment Weekly, Reitman senior will produce the new film, which will act as a continuation of Ghostbusters II and is unconnected thematically with the 2016 all-female reboot.

Reitman junior, whose latest film The Front Runner is out now and an outside contender in this year’s awards season, has been working on the unannounced project for some months, using the title Rust City. Producing studio Sony consider Ghostbusters to be a lucrative franchise but were taken aback by the hostility in some quarters surrounding the Paul Feig-directed release in 2016, which culminated in a stream of racist and misogynist abuse aimed at one its stars, Leslie Jones. The film’s global box office take of $229m was a disappointment and represented a significant financial loss.

This new project is putting clear distance between itself and Feig’s film, attempting to engage with long-term fans, asserting that it is not a reboot and using the Reitman name as a form of nostalgia. Reitman told Entertainment Weekly: “I’ve always thought of myself as the first Ghostbusters fan, when I was a six year old visiting the set. I wanted to make a movie for all the other fans … This is the next chapter in the original franchise. It is not a reboot.”

Reitman had a small role in the first Ghostbusters, playing one of the residents escaping the “spook central” apartment block, but he was cut from the final film. In the 1989 sequel he delivered the memorable line: “My dad says you guys are full of crap” to Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson.

The new film is due for release in 2020, and there is no word yet as to whether any of the original surviving cast will return. Original co-writer Aykroyd has been attempting to set up a sequel to Ghostbusters II for some time, but it appears Reitman’s project is entirely separate. A proposed reboot starring Channing Tatum never went into serious development.