Paul Feig is making a female-led GHOSTBUSTERS reboot

When it comes to a new installment in the Ghostbusters  franchise, we’ve had years of false starts, fake outs and no Bill f@#$king Murray. But after all that time, during which fans rode the rollercoaster of excitement/dashed dreams/false hope/indifference, it seems we’re finally getting that third Ghostbusters flick. It just won’t be Ghostbusters 3.

Despite the fact that Sony warmed up quite a bit to Etan “Men in Black 3” Cohen’s Ghostbusters 3 script (the latest in a long line of drafts, and which had to be rejiggered after the recent passing of original star Harald Ramis), and original movies star/producer Dan Aykroyd claiming that the film could go into production early 2015, the film still had no director after Ivan Reitman pulled himself out of the project. Aykroyd and co were frantically in search of a helmer, and initially it seems as if they had finally found it in Paul Feig, he of Bridesmaids and The Heat fame.

But according to The Wrap, instead of Feig coming on board to the planned Ghostbusters 3, he fed Sony a completely different pitch which they loved so much that they’ve now scrapped their original plans to go with his vision. That vision being that this will not be a continuation of the adventures of the remaining members of the original team, but will be a reboot focusing on a new female team of Ghostbusters. There may be some connective tissue between the old and new movie – maybe some cameos by Aykroyd and fellow Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson – but this will definitely not have a “3” in the title, so as to indicate the clean start – Feig is said to also be rewriting the script completely from scratch.

Feig has been on a (mostly successful) mission to up Hollywood’s female-led comedy blockbuster population, so this could just be viewed as a natural continuation of the work he’s been doing over the last few years. And with that in mind, it probably isn’t too much of a long shot to speculate that Feig’s female-comedy talisman, Melissa McCarthy, will probably be looked at to star in this. Emma Stone, who is a firm favourite over on the Sony lot, and who actually turned down a previous Ghostbusters 3 pitch years ago, may actually also just find her name popping into the conversation again. Sandra Bullock, who had reportedly had a great time working with Feig on The Heat (and who I felt was actually the best part of that movie), may just find herself getting a call as well, as her name will definitely be a big draw.

Feig is currently still busy wrangling together Spy, his third comedy outing with McCarthy, while he also has a bunch of other script ideas up in the air, so it’s pretty unlikely that this will meet Aykroyd’s previously mentioned production start date. Whenever it does happen, I can’t help but be relieved that something concrete either way is finally happening. A fan can only stomach so many “Bill Murray is/isn’t in Ghostbusters 3” stories before you just give up.

Last Updated: August 4, 2014