For as long as we’ve known about Ghostbusters 3, the plan was to have old fan favorite Ghostbusters Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and, if they could find a way to lure him back, Bill Murray, in small cameo roles while a group of new actors stepped into the main roles. Sadly Ramis passed away, Murray seemingly never wanted anything to do with it, and the movie constantly struggled to find its way.
This week it was confirmed that Bridesmaids and The Heat director Paul Feig would be making the movie, with Katie Dippold writing the screenplay. And now, as it turns out, we find out that their plan is not to make a sequel that continues the stories we’ve been told and includes appearances from the older Ghostbusters, but instead to fully reboot the franchise entirely.
When asked how the project officially came to be, Feig said:
“I had been contacted by Sony and Ivan a number of months ago when I was in Budapest shooting my new movie Spy. But I was like, I don’t know if I want to take that on because the first two are such classics and just because of how do you do it? Who do you bring in now that Harold’s gone? I know that Bill didn’t want to do it and I love Dan, but it was just like I don’t know how to do it. Then I had lunch with [Sony Pictures co-chairman] Amy Pascal when I got back to town. She was just saying, gosh, nobody wants to do this. I said, yeah, it’s really hard to take that on, especially since it’s 25 years later. how do you come back into a world that’s had these ghosts and all this? It just felt too difficult. How do you do it and not screw it up?
But then it was bugging me for the next few days because Ghostbusters is such a great thing and everybody knows it, and it’s such a great world. It’s a shame to just let this thing sit there. I want to see another one. My favorite thing to do is work with funny women. 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. And then I thought, well, what if we just make it new? It’s not coming into the world that existed before. It’s always hard if the world has gone through this big ghost attack, how do you do it again? I wanted to come into our world where there’s talk of ghosts but they’re not really credible, and so what would happen in our world if this happened today?”
Feig was then asked if this meant the world of the first two movies doesn’t exist in this new movie, to which he responded:
“Yeah. 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?”
And when asked if there would still be room for cameos from old cast members:
“Well, I mean, look, those are my comedy heroes. So as far as I’m concerned, anybody wants to come back I welcome with open arms. It would just be in different roles now, but it would be fun to figure out how to do that.”
You can read much more of Feig talking about the project over at Entertainment Weekly, but that sums up the most important part.
More importantly, what do you the fans feel about all of this? Personally it’s still up in the air. Part of me as a fan of the older movies loved the idea of a new group of Ghostbusters being introduced that are being mentored/trained by the old guard, while I also understand not want to mess with the classics.
Would you rather see a continuation of the series with elder Ghostbusters training a new team, or are do you like the idea of a complete reboot with no ties to the old movies apart from the title?
its going to suck…real simple.
Comment by Danny Atwell — October 10, 2014 @ 10:47 am
You’re probably right, but you never know.
Comment by UNCARING1 — October 10, 2014 @ 11:38 am
That’s it, I’m staying home. I was disappointed that they weren’t going to have Dan Ackyroyd and Ernie Hudson involved and thought the “all-female Ghostbusters” thing seemed like a gimmick; but I was at least willing to give it a chance. But now that this going to be a straight-up reboot and not a sequel, that effectively busted any enthusiasm I might have had for this tired rehash. I’m hoping this bad idea winds up in Development Hell and never gets made.
Comment by MadMike R5D4 — October 11, 2014 @ 11:19 am