Paul Feig to direct all-female cast in Ghostbusters 3?

Bridemaids director Paul Feig is set to helm Ghostbusters 3, but it is an all-female cast or a continuation in the original series? The confusion comes from the fact Variety‘s reporting a reboot while The Hollywood Reporter says it’ll be a 25-years-later version.

BRIDESMAIDS Director Paul Feig Eyed to Helm GHOSTBUSTERS 3; /4/Be Female-Led Reboot http://t.co/Xu83CscMps pic.twitter.com/8ZpCN0hjkn

— Adam Chitwood (@adamchitwood) August 2, 2014

Alicia Lutes from The Nerdist gives a pretty strong argument for the all-female reboot, though. With a strong association with female comedies outside of typical rom com, he’s got the resume to really push for a female cast to draw in a female audience.

“The man has also executive produced series like Nurse Jackie and Ronna and Beverly, so he knows a thing or two about championing funny women well.”

Of course, there’s the question of who Melissa McCarthy would play since she’s been in most of his major hits, like Bridesmaids and The Heat. Ivana Spengler? Petra Venkeman? Raya Stantz? Louisa Tully? The choices are pretty wide since she could even work as an updated Willa Peck (Walter Peck).

Female Focused ‘Ghostbusters 3’ Eyes ‘Bridesmaids’ Director http://t.co/S7h4UtDUH8 pic.twitter.com/MnXpZ1ltWW

— MovieWeb (@MovieWeb) August 2, 2014

What other actresses would be good for an all-female cast? While headliners would be great, comedic actresses are limited due to the industry’s bias towards male stand up and physical comedy actors.

And, yep, purposefully missed Winston Zeddmore because Ernie Hudson just owns that role until the ends of earth. The man showed up in his Ghostbusters costume to sign autographs at Dragon Con last year for pity’s sake. He /4/love Ghostbusters fans more than they love the film—which is saying a lot. No one else’s voice will do in the role.

(Yes, totally a bias on my part. I’m okay with it.)

Meanwhile The Hollywood Reporter‘s Borys Kit discusses how the switch from a reworked script by The Office‘s Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg had to be essentially tossed out due to Ramis’s death. The article now reads the new script “introduces new Ghostbusters and hands the baton from at least a couple of the originals.”

Dan Aykroyd‘s all about returning, Bill Murray‘s staying mum but been vocal about not returning before, and Hudson exclusively confirmed some sort of appearance in June to FilmDumpster.com. In Hudson’s interview, he admitted “Harold was the glue” of the cast. So reworking the script into a different base holds a lot of merit.

According to Huffington Post‘s Erin Whitney, speculation’s high because original director and champion Ivan Reitman left the project after Harold Ramis‘s death in March.

How do you continue a series without Egan Spengler? Rick Moranis could feasibly fill a gap, but Louis Tully was more of a mascot or pet than a member of the team. Plus, Moranis left Hollywood and acting behind for the most part.

HuffPo also notes 22 Jump Street‘s Phil Lord and Chris Miller stepped away from Ghostbusters 3, as well as Zombieland‘s Ruben Fleischer. Fleischer worked with Bill Murray on Zombieland, where Murray played a version of himself who gets killed by Tallassee’s crew by accident.

‘Ghostbusters 3’ Targets Paul Feig as Director – Hollywood Reporter http://t.co/BsqGCPBWJt @Wiizl_World pic.twitter.com/9pl6gEGBo2

— Wiizl.com (@Wiizl_World) August 3, 2014

Variety adds that after Stupnitsky and Eisenberg wrote the script in 2008, Men in Black 3‘s Etan Cohen was brought in to retool and redraft the script prior to Ramis passing away.

When the
Post asked for clarification from Feig, a representative refused to offer any information on-record. The representative did email an interesting tidbit about the director being attached to the film.

#Ghostbusters3 eyes #TheHeat director Paul Feig, reportedly becoming a female-led reboot: http://t.co/G2h0dGqiQC pic.twitter.com/VinhcgXAXj

— ScreenCrush (@screencrushnews) August 2, 2014

The Freaks and Geeks executive producer has “an ongoing relationship at Fox where they have several new scripts they’re trying to put together to go immediately while he posts Spy.” Huffington notes Spy is his next film with McCarthy, which will hit theaters in summer 2015.

So if he does take over, the film /4/languish for quite a while yet. Ah, the life of a Ghostbusters fan. Never dull.  But an all female reboot might be a nice update to a 30-year-old story without destroying the iconic “Who Ya Gonna Call” 1980s Ghostbusters.