By Lily Kunda
A new “Ghostbusters” film, with an all-female cast, is set to start shooting this summer and expected to release in July 2016. The actresses playing the Ghostbusters include Kristen Wig, Melissa McCarthy of “Bridesmaids,” and Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnen of “Saturday Night Live.”
Information about the film’s reboot was revealed in the December Sony email hacks. Sony CEO Amy Pascal revealed that Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer and Lizzy Caplan were possibilities for the roles of the female ghost-busting crew.
Film director Paul Feig, who also directed “Bridesmaids,” said the idea to make it an all-female cast came to him as a joke originally, but the more he thought about it the better it sounded.
“I was like, what if it was an all-female cast? If they were all women? Suddenly, my mind kind of exploded: that would be really fun,” said Feig, according to Rolling Stone magazine. “My favorite thing to do is work with funny women.” The new film will be going for a new and fresh twist on the classic.
“If you look at it from a movie perspective, if they did three kind of funny guys it might look too much like “Magic Mike” or “The Interview” or something like that. So if you go with a different set of cast you get a different kind of funny,” said Stephanie Williams.
The 1984 classic starring Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and the late Harold Ramis still ranks as one of the funniest comedies of all time. The film grossed $242 million in the United States and $295 million worldwide. The 1989 sequel, “Ghostbusters 2,” grossed $112 million. It received two Oscar nominations and was rated 3.5 out of four stars by Roger Ebert, who called it “one of the biggest laughs in a long time.” “Ghostbusters” became such a hit that it had franchised video games and even its own television series that aired in 1986.
The continuation of the franchise was originally supposed to be headed by original “Ghostbusters” director Ivan Reitman, but the death of Harold Ramis stopped him from proceeding with the project, and it was later taken over by Paul Feig.
Feig is familiar with working with all-female casts, with his huge box office successes on “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat.” Moviegoers can expect somewhat of a reunion, since he worked with Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wig in “Bridesmaids.” Feig has enlisted the help of screenwriter Katie Dippold, who worked with him on “The Heat,” to make the new film a success.
But don’t expect a “Ghostbusters 3.” The new re-make is to be completely original and not a sequel to the original. It is to have a new storyline and be set in the present day.
“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,” Feig said, according to Entertainment Weekly. “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?’”
There was talk of possibly having the first Ghostbusters pass the torch to the new ones, but with the death of Harold Ramis, the possibility of that is now up in the air. Don’t rule out the possibility of cameos from some of the original Ghostbusters though.
The biggest concern for “Ghostbusters” lovers is losing the funny cheesiness of the original film, getting something that isn’t authentic and takes away from the film’s cult legacy.
“I don’t have my hopes up. I’m not going to say it will beat the original. I’m not even going to say it will beat ‘Ghostbusters 2,’ but I think it will be a new era of ‘Ghostbuster’ young people can hopefully align themselves with and connect with,” said self-proclaimed “Ghostbusters”-obsessed Jason Seward. “There are so many sequels that are made to follow up movies that are absolutely terrible. But I see them being able to stay true to the old, but I just don’t want to see them tarnish the Ghostbusters name. But I don’t think it will.”
“Ghostbusters” lovers look forward to seeing how the film will revamp the special effects and what they will do with the costumes.
So, who you gonna call?