Paul Feig reveals why he made all-female Ghostbusters

10 June 2019

Paul Feig says he rebooted 'Ghostbusters' with an all-female cast as they were the "funniest people" he knew at the time.

Paul Feig

The 56-year-old director revealed that the reason he chose Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones to be the supernatural security squad in his reboot of the hit '80s franchise because he liked the idea of starting a "new team" and had already worked with "these really funny women".

Speaking at Ghostbusters Fan Fest, he said: "For me, it was I like the idea of starting this new team. And originally, when I thought of it - because the first thing I thought when [Sony] had been asking me was like, 'I just want to work with the funniest people I know. Who are the funniest people I know? All these really funny women that I work with all the time.'

"Then it was like, 'Should it be their daughters?' And then I just kind of felt like - and some can decide if I was right or not, some people don't agree - I thought, why not let them have their own origin story?"

The 2016 film shows the team developing their own ghostbusting technology and the 'Bridesmaids' director says "for better or worse" he's glad he included those scenes in the film as he's a "real science nut" and loves watching how technology is developed.

He said: "I love all the technology in 'Ghostbusters', and I was like, 'I wonder how that developed.' I'm a real science nut, so let's find where that came from, and then have these characters bond and find themselves versus [the technology already existing].

"I personally didn't want them to just be handed, 'Here's the technology, go out and do it.' So for better or worse, I thought it was fun and I'm very proud of the movie."

A direct sequel to the original two movies is being made and is being helmed by original director Ivan Reitman's son Jason.

Sigourney Weaver has confirmed that she will be reprising her role as Dana Barrett, whose apartment was haunted by an evil demon in the original 1984 film, and she also revealed that Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd will be back as Dr. Peter Venkman and Dr. Ray Stantz respectively.