Comedy director Paul Feig doesn’t have time to celebrate the success of his latest film, ‘Spy’ as he is diving right into shooting his new remake of ‘Ghostbusters’ headlined by ‘Spy’ star Melissa McCarthy.  Filming was slated to begin today in Boston, which is subbing for New York City.  According to reports, the financial district will be the scene of an “epic ghost invasion” in the film.

Yesterday, Feig marked the occasion by posting this slimy image on Twitter:

With filming commencing, some plot details have emerged.  Here is what is known so far:

Wiig and McCarthy play a pair of unheralded authors who write a book positing that ghosts are real. Flash forward a few years and Wiig lands a prestigious teaching position at Columbia U., which is pretty sweet, until her book resurfaces and she is laughed out of academia.

Wiig reunites with McCarthy and the other two proton pack-packing phantom wranglers, and she gets some sweet revenge when ghosts invade Manhattan and she and her team have to save the world.

Wiig cemented her film career by starring in Feig’s 2011 breakout hit ‘Bridesmaids,’ which also featured McCarthy in a supporting role.  Hopefully this collaboration will prove even more fruitful.

This plot synopsis isn’t too far a departure from the original, in which Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis played college professors who channeled their expertise in the paranormal to form a struggling spectre extermination business.  This synopsis barely mentions the other two characters, played by Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones so it isn’t clear how they will be worked into the story.

Anyone worried about this version straying too far from the beloved source should keep in mind that Dan Aykroyd and original director Ivan Reitman are serving as executive producers, so that should maintain some continuity.  There are hopes to include cameos from Aykroyd and Murray, but good luck there as Murray has grown increasingly distant and incredibly selective of his projects in recent years.  He has also historically been the “hold out” on earlier attempts to revive the ‘Ghostbusters’ franchise with the original cast.

But one original cast member is all but locked in to return in the new film:

Yes, Slimer is expected to factor into the movie in some capacity.  Then known only as the “Green Ghost,” the greasy ghoul was featured in one of the first film’s most famous scenes.  He was officially named Slimer and became the team’s mascot on the Saturday morning cartoon ‘The Real Ghostbusters’ (which was even renamed ‘Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters’) before returning for a larger part in ‘Ghostbusters 2.’  (Hopefully, this will result in Hi-C reviving Ecto Cooler, so people can stop bitching about it being discontinued 30 years ago.)

That’s about it for now, but with filming under way, expect more details to emerge over the next few months, until the movie arrives on July 22nd, 2016.

Are you ready to call these new ‘Ghostbusters?’

Source: Collider