The Paul Feig all-female Ghostbusters reboot has a cast in place and a release date. What else do we know about this controversial project?
NewsSome franchises you just can’t exterminate.
A Ghostbustersreboot is happening and it will feature an all-female cast. This is no sequel. The legacy of the Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and the late Harold Ramis Ghostbusters will remain intact. Those are the essential facts.
From here it gets a little tricky. Bringing the Ghostbusters back was a long and painstaking process. The project was in limbo as talks of reuniting the original cast flickered on and off for decades. Then Paul Feig, who will write and direct the reboot, got his hands on the franchise and now, 26 years removed from Ghostbusters 2, we’re looking at the dawn of a new day in ghost removal.
Moving forward, we’ll use this page as a content hub for Ghostbusters news. For now, here’s everything we know so far about the reboot..
Wait...I thought we were getting Ghostbusters 3?
Ghostbusters 3has been thrown around for twenty years or so. The plan was pretty much always to introduce a new team of 'busters to join up with the original cast. There were two problems: the script, and the fact that Bill Murray didn't seem all that interested in doing it. Dan Aykroyd even suggested that Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent (as this was the title of a script that was floating around for awhile) could be done as an animated film.
Despite all the starts and stops, the idea of seeing the dormant Ghostbusters franchise revived was still very appealing to Hollywood.
Dan Aykroyd was invested in making it happen. In speaking with THRlast year, he said:
"It’s beyond just another sequel, a prequel, another TV show. I'm thinking what does the whole brand mean to Sony? What does Pixar and Star Wars mean to Disney? What does Marvel mean to Fox?"
When Aykroyd gave those comments (pre- Feig’s involvement), he was working with “the executives, the creatives” on making Ghostbusters "not just another movie or another TV show,” but creating an entire mythology or Marvel-like universe behind it. One of those "creatives" was Ivan Reitman, who had always intended to direct another Ghostbusters film, but left the director's chair after Harold Ramis tragically passed away.
It’s unclear whether that’s still the plan now that Feig’s taking the reigns on a reboot, but the prospects of a Ghostbusters movie set in the original timeline involving members of the original team reprising their roles may finally be finished, once and for all. We wrote more about the long, sad, untold story that is Ghostbusters 3 here.
Regardless of whether Dan Aykroyd's vision for a "shared Ghostbusters universe" ever materializes, we’re looking at the 2016 film -- a complete departure from the '80s Ghostbusters, but it might just be the end of it. New story. New characters. All women.
If the boys aren’t back in town, who are the gals getting rid of those pesky ghosts?
Bill Murray was on board with an all-female cast from when the idea was still just a rumor floating around. The original Ghostbuster suggested Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Emma Stone, and Linda Cardellini would make a perfect team.
It appears Feig partially took his advice. Wiig and McCarthy are in talks to star in the film. Feig didn’t pick his Freaks and Geeks leading lady Cardellini or Stone, but he mined Saturday Night Livefor tremendous up-and-coming talents in Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.
Only McCarthy is officially signed on, with various outlets reporting the negotiations for Wiig, Jones, and McKinnon are "ongoing," but Feig tweeted out what appeared to be a confirmation:
— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) January 27, 2015
Wiig and McCarthy are familiar with Feig -- both having starred in his well-received hit Bridesmaids. McKinnon, who was nominated for an Emmy and has become an SNL fan-favorite, will make her major film debut in Ghostbusters. Jones has been a breakout player during her first full season on SNL and recently had a role in Chris Rock’s Top Five.
As for Murray, rumor has it that Feig is still working on trying to persuade the comedy legend to make a cameo.
It's too early to tell who else will make an appearence but Aykroyd released a statement on the casting:
"The Aykroyd family is delighted by this inheritance of the Ghostbusters torch by these most magnificent women in comedy. My great grandfather, Dr. Sam Aykroyd, the original Ghostbuster, was a man who empowered women in his day, and this is a beautiful development in the legacy of our family business.”
What can we expect from the plot of the Ghostbusters reboot?
From interviews, we know Paul Feig and writer Katie Dipold want the film to spook us, more so than the original. “Katie Dipold and I are so focused on wanting to do scary comedy,” Feig told Empire. “We don't want to hold back." That doesn’t mean they’ll shoot for an R-rating. The film will likely be PG-13 because as Feig said "you want the biggest number of people to watch it and not be put off by it."
If you read the tea leaves of Feig’s interview, you can gauge the direction he wants to take the film:
"I have too much respect for the original one [to do a sequel]. There’s also the feeling that once the world knows ghosts and has seen them busted on such a large scale, they run the risk of becoming pedestrian. There's something fun about introducing our world, which has never seen ghosts to the phenomenon of ghosts. I love origin stories and to introduce new characters.”
Like the original film, Ghostbusterswill be set in New York.
When is Ghostbusters hitting theaters?
Ghostbusters starts shooting over the summer in New York City. The film is currently set for a July 22nd, 2016 release.
We’ll continue to update this post as we get more information.
More Ghostbusters reading:
Bill Murray Talks Ghostbusters Reboot
Defending Ghostbusters II
How Harold Ramis Changed Comedy
