In a recent interview, director Paul Feig opened up about his planned ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot, and why he made the decisions he did about the franchise. To start with, here are his comments about the decisions to make the movie scarier, focusing on scary comedy more so than the original. Also, he speaks on why this is not a sequel or any kind of “next generation” of ‘Ghostbusters’ movie, and is instead a hard reboot:
“I want ours to be scarier than the original, to be quite honest. (Co-writer) Katie Dippold and I are so focused on wanting to do scary comedy. We don’t want to hold back…The reason I do a lot of R-Rated comedies is that you want a movie to feel honest. But the Ghostbusters world doesn’t need that level of swearing. We’ll have to be PG-13 with this one. I would like to make it R-Rated, but I won’t. You want the biggest number of people to watch it and not be put off by it… I have too much respect for the original one [to do a sequel]. There’s also the feeling that once the world knows ghosts and has seen them busted on such a large scale, they run the risk of becoming pedestrian. There’s something fun about introducing our world, which has never seen ghosts to the phenomenon of ghosts. I love origin stories and to introduce new characters.”
Personally, I think its fine to be doing scary comedy, as it is different from everything else we see out there, and rebooting the franchise also makes a certain amount of sense as it has been over 30 years since the the original, and tat’s plenty of time (unlike say ‘Spider-man’ which rebooted about 5 years after the original). Next Feig defended the choice to make all the Ghostbusters woman, a decision that I personally am not sold on yet, while he also speaks on the rumors of which ladies will be cast, vehemently saying he doesn’t have anyone in mind just yet:
“A lot of people accused it of being a gimmick. I guess I can see the cynics’ view of it, but for me I just love working with funny women. People said, ‘Why don’t you do a mix?’ I’m just more interested in the idea of lady Ghostbusters. It’s the way my brain works…It won’t be called Lady Ghostbusters! Certainly not…Ghostbustieres is the way to go… Right now, honestly, there could be 50 Ghostbusters. I’m just waiting to get our first draft of the script together to go, ‘Who makes sense in these roles?’ If I put the list in front of me of people that have said they want to do it, talk about a Sophie’s Choice. When you do a movie like Ghostbusters, people get very interested.”
I can’t help but feel that the all women casting is nothing but a gimmick, something that Feig is trying to make his “style” of moviemaking, and I’m afraid the essence of the franchise we know and love might be lost to the pointless ego of this man. It doesn’t have to be an all male cast either, but making the team 100% women will most definitely drive away many male viewers, and I just don’t think its the right way to go. Here’s to hoping Feig proves me wrong, as despite everything I would really like to see the franchise do well again.
Source: Joblo, ComicBookMovie.com
