Many fans of the original Ghostbusters films were shocked when they heard that an all-female cast would be starring in the Ghostbusters reboot film. On a press junket for the Melissa McCarthy comedy Spy, director Paul Feig took time to explain why he is making his version of Ghostbusters.
The successful director mentioned that he had been contacted at various times about helming the third Ghostbusters feature, but turned it down until he found his own way to approach the project.
“I didn’t know how to do it, and scripts had been written but I couldn’t figure out how to do it,” Feig said. “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 I thought, ‘If I could put four women in the lead roles, that’s exciting to me,’ like, ‘that I know how to do and I know how to make that funny.'”
Feig is noted for directing comedy films such as Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy that feature strong female headliners. He also found an upside to rebooting the film.
“I thought I’d rather do it as a reboot, so I wasn’t tied to the old movies,” he said. “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 and how they’re going to develop their technology.”
Open to a lot of criticism from fans of the original films for gender bending the roles, Feig strongly points out that the first two films, which utilize male team members of Ghostbusters, still exist.
“Funny people are funny people. The reason that first movie works is because those guys were funny,” Feig says. “And so that’s really all I care about: How can I make the funniest movie? I’m going to pick the funniest people I know and those happen to be these four women.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter