With director Paul Feig out promoting his new film Spy, there’s been no shortage of opportunities for interviewers to ask him about that other project everyone’s wondering about: The upcoming reboot of Ghostbusters.
In an interview with Empire, Feig offered up a few more details about the reboot of the supernatural comedy franchise, which will feature a cast of female leads and unfold outside the continuity of the original films. Still, despite it being a full-scale reboot of the franchise, Feig indicated that at least one element from the original 1984 movie will carry over to the new film.
“To me it’s such a New York movie and the biggest sin would be to pull it out of there,” said Feig of the setting for the reboot. “I just love New York and, selfishly, I just want to shoot in New York.”
Directed by Ivan Reitman, the original film cast Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson as a team of paranormal investigators who hunt and capture various paranormal entities haunting Manhattan.
Feig hinted that the setting of the reboot won’t be the only nod to the original, though.
“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.'” he teased. “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.”
Feig also offered a response to the question that everyone seems to be asking since the project was first announced: Why reboot Ghostbusters?
“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,” he explained. “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 release date set for the film at this point, with Feig and his co-writer on The Heat, Katie Dippold, currently working on the script.
