Paul Feig the creator of Freaks and Geeks, director of Bridesmaids and writer/director of the recent comedy Spy, is of course attached to the female-led Ghostbusters film which is currently filming. Ghostbusters reunites Feig with Melissa McCarthy alongside Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.
It’s taken many years for any form of new Ghostbusters film to finally happen, Ghostbusters 3 appeared to be an on again/off again project countless times with a number of reincarnations involving Dan Akroyd and Ivan Reitman however ultimately none of those versions came to fruition.
Feig has revealed some insights into his decision making process for this Ghostbusters film, particularly his reluctance to be involve in a simple sequel to the previous films, instead preferring a reinvention/new approach to the idea.
Specifically Feig has been quoted as follows;
I had been contacted several times about doing a sequel for Ghostbusters and I just kept turning it down because I didn’t know how to do it. The scripts had been written, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I wasn’t excited about it.
So finally, one day I was like, it’s a great franchise and it’s a great idea, if I was going to do it, how would I do it? And then I thought, if I could put four women in the lead roles, that’s exciting to me. That I know how to do, and I know how to make that funny. And there’s so many funny women I’ve been dying to work with. Obviously Melissa and Kristen are in it, but then Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, who are so funny. It just seemed like the way to do it.
Then I thought, I’d rather do it as a reboot so I’m not tied to the old movies. The old movies are so good, I didn’t want to mess with them. And I also want to see the beginnings of this group. I want to see people seeing ghosts for the first time, and how they’re going to fight them for the first time, how they develop their technology. So it just got very exciting to me. I just like working with funny women, and that’s all I really like to do with my career.
With such a long gap in films it’s understandable why this approach would apeal to Feig, particulaly given his desire to explore a new perspective on the series, including a sense of discovery, rather than blending something in to fit with the previous films. Certainly by the sounds of his comments Feig has maintained creative control on this one, so it’s looking extremely likely that the final film delivered will be his uncompromised take on the series.
While there’s been speculation of a Ghostbusters cinematic universe, with a male led series running in parallel, the Feig-reboot appears to be the only version with real traction at this point. If its box office take is impressive enough though, no doubt there will be further films put on the fast track.
For now however, the next Ghostbusters film is scheduled for a mid-2016 release.
