You want Ghostbusters details? We’ve got ’em. With filming for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters about to kick off this week in Boston (yes, the film is still set in New York City, but the world of filming is a wacky, unfair, confusing one), details are finally starting to trickle out about what we can expect from the all-new, women-centric features, including the clearest breakdown we’ve gotten so far of who will be playing whom.
The Boston Herald shares “[Kristen] Wiig and [Melissa] McCarthy play a pair of unheralded authors who write a book positing that ghosts are real. Flash forward a few years and Wiig lands a prestigious teaching position at Columbia U. Which is pretty sweet, until her book resurfaces and she is laughed out of academia.” Ah, academia, full of shame and laughter and a hearty disrespect for the ghostly.
Eventually, “Wiig reunites with McCarthy and the other two proton pack-packing phantom wranglers, and she gets some sweet revenge when ghosts invade Manhattan and she and her team have to save the world.” A revenge story! Sounds like a Western!
Back in January, new details emerged about the characters that will kit out the story, including “Erin Gabler, an academic on the tenure track at Columbia; Abby Bergman, who pursues ghosts for a living, with a focus on parapsychology; Jillian, Abby’s ghost-hunting partner; and Patty, an MTA employee who comes across the main ghost.” So it seems that Wiig will be playing Erin, with McCarthy likely playing Abby. (Did the duo have a falling-out over the book, one that led to Erin going school-y and Abby recommitting to the cause?) That leaves McKinnon or Jones to play either Abby’s new partner Jillian or the ghost-finding MTA employee Patty. Chris Hemsworth will continue to play our dearest dream.
Still, the newspaper cautions “the script has gone through a slew of revisions. And may still be getting tweaked even as director Paul Feig gets ready to shout ‘Roll ’em.’”
The Herald also boasts that their spy has assured them that Slimer will be back for more sticky fun, though the production is still scrambling to lock down cameos by Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray, reporting, “They are negotiating…But, of course, no one can get ahold of Murray.” I heard the guy likes kickball, if that helps.
And, if you’re just dying to know what Aykroyd thinks of the new film, you better believe he’ll tell you. The original Ghostbusters star told CBR, “We’ve had brilliant creators walk in, from Paul Feig to many others. And we loved the concepts they’re coming up with. And this one with the four girls is going to be massive. Oh, man, it’s funny. It’s intelligent. It hits the right notes, and I’m really excited about it. It refers to the first two in a really neat, classy way, but this is all going to introduce them to a whole new generation of girls that are going to want to be Ghostbusters. We always needed them.”
Ahem, they are women, Dan.
Ghostbusters will arrive in theaters on July 22, 2016.