After months of speculation, Paul Feig finally confirmed yesterday that, yes, he is making a new Ghostbusters, and that, yes, it will star a cast of female Ghostbusters and, yes, the screenwriter of The Heat, Katie Dippold, is working with him on the screenplay, and, yes, this is a run-on sentence. Feig followed up his tweet announcing the project with an interview for Entertainment Weekly, where he revealed a few more crucial details about the project, which is still early in pre-production. Most importantly: Feig’s Ghostbusters is a reboot, not a sequel. Here’s his full quote on the subject:
“I love origin stories. That’s my favorite thing. I love the first one so much I don’t want to do anything to ruin the memory of that. So it just felt like, let’s just restart it because then we can have new dynamics. I want the technology to be even cooler. I want it to be really scary, and I want it to happen in our world today that hasn’t gone through it so it’s like, oh my God what’s going on?”
The interview also reveals that the all-female cast was Feig’s idea, after Sony came to him and asked if he’d make the movie (and he initially turned it down); mulling it over, he stumbled on the notion of women in all the lead roles and suddenly found himself excited by the opportunity. Feig also said he and Dippold are “obsessed with how do we make comedy really scary” and that then goal is to make something “crazy funny but also you’re scared at the same time.”
Feig’s plan also means don’t expect to see cameos from the surviving Ghostbusters (at least the ones who would want to cameo) because in this film Peter Venkman and Ray Stanz and Winston Zeddemore don’t exist. Feig said if Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, or Ernie Hudson decide they want to make an appearance in his Ghostbusters, he’ll find some room for them (“Anybody who wants to come back I welcome with open arms”), but they’ll need to play different, new characters.
According to Feig, no one’s been cast in any of the coveted ghost-busting roles yet. He did say he loved Bill Murray’s picks—Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Linda Cardellini, and Emma Stone—but added that there are “so many funny women” to choose from. Which is part of why this is such a good idea for a Ghostbusters movie. Too often comedies, even good ones, relegate the women in the cast to sidekicks or girlfriends or nagging scolds. It will be really cool to see the ladies take center stage.