Paul Feig Calls Female-Centric Ghostbusters Movie A “Total Reboot”

Just yesterday, Paul Feig made the rather wonderful announcement through Twitter that he would helm the all-female Ghostbusters retelling alongside Heat collaborator, Katie Dippold — who is onboard to pen the script. Amid all the hustle and bustle, Entertainment Weekly caught up with the director who, despite early apprehensions, couldn’t be more excited to bring his vision to the silver screen.

“My favorite thing to do is work with funny women,” said Feig. “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.”

During the interview, Feig revealed that Sony actually approached him several months ago, a time when the project was still carrying the Ghostbusters 3 moniker. It was during this period that other high-profile filmmakers passed up the opportunity — including Phil Lord and Chris Miller of The LEGO Movie — simply because they weren’t sure how to approach it. For Fieg, though, the answer soon became crystal clear.

“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?”

While we are a ways away from actual filming at this stage, there are several actresses who appear to be in the running to be cast as the revamped ‘busters. Chief among them are Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Linda Cardellini and Emma Stone. In fact, that monster-hunting quartet has even been endorsed by Bill Murray himself.

What we do know is that Feig and Dippold don’t plan to pull any punches when it comes to the female-led Ghostbusters, stating that, while the reboot will no doubt have some comedic moments, it seems the creative pair want to amp up the scare factor.

“Both she and I are obsessed with how do we make comedy really scary?” Feig said. “I think funny people in peril and in danger is one of the best forms of comedy, and I really like things to play very real while funny things are happening.”