Director Paul Feig On Why He’s Rebooting ‘Ghostbusters’
Ghostbusters is one of those franchises that refuses to die. For years, filmmakers have been trying to reboot it, but to no avail. Dan Aykroyd wrote a script years ago, and in 2011, he said Ghostbusters 3 would be moving forward in 2012, with or without Bill Murray — who famously shredded the Ghostbusters 3 script and said that “no one wants to pay money to see fat, old men chasing ghosts.”
Last August, word was thrown around that director Paul Feig, of Bridesmaids and The Heat fame, was brought in to reboot Ghostbusters with an all-female cast. On board with him was Katie Dippold (The Heat) as his co-writer. It is now months later, and it looks like things are still headed in this direction for Ghostbusters — a refreshing change for a franchise that has been shrouded in constant misfortune.
In an interview with Empire, Paul Feig delved into why he decided to reboot Ghostbusters when he could have done anything.
“A lot of people ask why I didn’t create my own thing, but ‘Ghostbusters’ never ran out of steam, it’s such a great idea, It’s such a fun franchise so why not bring it to a new generation? The old movie is never going to not exist. It’s not my plan to erase every copy! Hopefully they can all live together.”
Feig obviously has a very positive mindset, which is exactly what a director needs when taking on a movie that has faced so much opposition the past couple decades. Hopefully he’ll be the one who can tap the code that’s remained unbroken for years.
But what can we expect out of the film? Can we expect a beat-by-beat remake of the original? Will it be nostalgia overflow to the point where it’s practically a parody? Well, Feig cleared this point up as well.
“We’re not recreating the old movie, but we want to do just enough fun nods that the fans will go, ‘Oh, okay, they’re acknowledging that the other movie existed.’ I like to watch parodies, but I don’t want to do them because they’re too referential. Comedy that’s too referential has such a short shelf life, whereas comedy that’s based around characters will be relatable 2000 years from now because people won’t change that much.”
Feig is currently hard at work with Dippold on the script for the film. So far, Rebel Wilson and Jennifer Lawrence have at the very least had conversations about joining the cast (and Melissa McCarthy has expressed interest in joining as well). Will this version of Ghostbusters be the one that finally hits?
[Images Credit: Franziska Krug/Getty Images, 20th Century Fox, and Columbia Pictures]
