Paul Feig Confirms Ghostbusters Will Keep At Least One Key Piece From The Original
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Paul Feig’s upcoming Ghostbusters reboot, redo, or whatever you want to call it, has been controversial to say the least. Some don’t want a new Ghostbusters to happen at all, while many, many others have taken issue with the idea of a female-fronted version of the paranormal investigating team. For his part, Feig hasn’t even really addressed the hullabaloo, and has just kept on trucking, working on his project, and he recently shared some details about what the movie will look like.
Even though it will be set in the modern day, and the nature of the title team may be different (one rumor has said they could be something that sounds very much like a clandestine government agency, almost like Men in Black), at least one thing won’t change: the setting. Talking to Empire, Feig says he plans to keep Ghostbusters set in the Big Apple. He says, “To me it’s such a New York movie and the biggest sin would be to pull it out of there. I just love New York and, selfishly, I just want to shoot in New York.”
With new movies that revisit an older, preexisting title, there’s a definite line between paying homage, like some do, and straight up parodying or spoofing what came before, like others. Some even just try to recreate the earlier version. Feig has a plan in place for how his film is going to tread through this territory, and he says:
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.
I’m not any more put off by the idea of an all female Ghostbusters team than I am by the idea of another Ghostbusters movie at all. (I’m of the camp that there simply doesn’t need to be another Ghostbusters of any sort, sequel, reboot, or interpretive dance performance.) Feig is a director I generally like, and given the names who have already been mentioned in connection with the movie—Melissa McCarthy, Rebel Wilson, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, and tons more—he’s going to put together a fantastic cast.
I actually think the idea of Feig and any combination of these actors making a paranormal comedy sounds rad. And to be honest, I’ll probably enjoy whatever comes of this. The biggest question has always been, why not just make something new instead of rehashing something old? He addresses this by saying:
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.
There’s no timeline for Ghostbusters, as Feig and Katie Dippold are still reportedly working on the script, but for better or worse this is going to happen.
