Director Paul Feig's 'Ghostbusters' reboot will have a female cast

“Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig says he’s in for a new “Ghostbusters” movie and that the film will have a female cast.

There had been rumors that Feig could take the helm for the movie and that it might involve a cast of women, and the director himself confirmed it on Twitter.

Feig directed the 2011 movie “Bridesmaids,” which starred Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Melissa McCarthy, and the 2013 film “The Heat,” which starred McCarthy and Sandra Bullock. He also created the short-lived but acclaimed NBC sitcom “Freaks and Geeks” and has directed episodes of such TV shows as “Nurse Jackie,” “Arrested Development,” and “The Office.” Dippold was behind the script for “The Heat” and also wrote for the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation.” 

The first “Ghostbusters” film, which starred Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson, was released in 1984 and is considered a comedy classic. “Ghostbusters II,” which reunited the original cast, was released in 1989.

A third movie had been rumored for years and “Ghostbusters” and “Ghostbusters II” director Ivan Reitman was “the most stable part of the equation, long locked to direct his third installment,” Deadline reporter Mike Fleming Jr. writes. But Reitman decided to bow out after the death of Ramis earlier this year. “When I came back from Harold’s funeral, it was really moving and it made me think about a lot of things,” Reitman told Deadline. “I’d just finished directing [the movie released this April] ‘Draft Day,’ which I’m really happy with and proud of. Working on a film that is smaller and more dramatic was so much fun and satisfying… I said I’d been thinking about it for weeks, that I’d rather just produce this Ghostbusters. I told them I thought I could help, but let’s find a really good director and make it with him.”

Now Feig told Entertainment Weekly that the new movie will take place in an all-new “Ghostbusters” world. 

“My favorite thing to do is work with funny women,” he said. “I was like, what if it was an all female cast? If they were all women?  Suddenly, my mind kind of exploded: that would be really fun. And then I thought, well, what if we just make it new? It’s not coming into the world that existed before. It’s always hard if the world has gone through this big ghost attack, how do you do it again?... I love origin stories. That’s my favorite thing. I love the first one so much I don’t want to do anything to ruin the memory of that. So it just felt like, let’s just restart it because then we can have new dynamics. I want the technology to be even cooler. I want it to be really scary, and I want it to happen in our world today that hasn’t gone through it so it’s like, oh my God, what’s going on?” 

If any original “Ghostbusters” cast members wanted to return, Feig said he’d be on board.

“I mean, look, those are my comedy heroes,” Feig said. “So as far as I’m concerned, anybody wants to come back I welcome with open arms. It would just be in different roles now, but it would be fun to figure out how to do that.”

Murray had some ideas about casting – when asked about the possibility of a female “Ghostbusters” movie last month, he threw out names. 

“Melissa would be a spectacular Ghostbuster,” Murray told the Toronto Star, naming his “St. Vincent” co-star McCarthy. “And Kristen Wiig is so funny – God, she’s funny! I like this girl Linda Cardellini a lot. And Emma Stone is funny. There are some funny girls out there.”

When asked about Murray’s list, Feig called it “awesome.”

“For me there’s so many ways I can go with this because there are so many funny women, that’s going to be the hardest thing to narrow down is who to put in,” he told EW. “I’ve got a lot of ideas on that but nobody set in stone.”