Now that the Fantastic Four trailer is out, it's time for Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reboot to become the new movie that everyone hates despite not having seen a single frame of it. This week saw the reveal of the four main actors who - assuming negotiations go smoothly - will play the new team of Ghostbusters in the revamped supernatural comedy: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones.
Ghostbusters is expected to begin filming in June 2015 with a release date set for summer 2016, but there has been little revealed in the way of plot details aside from the fact the film will once again explore the discovery and reveal of ghosts. Feig has said that he considered the reboot option to be better than a sequel for this reason, since he felt that the movie wouldn't be as fun if the existence of ghosts was already an established fact in the Ghostbusters' world.
A new report originally from HitFix (with the details recorded by /Film before HitFix got a stern telling-off from Sony and had to censor the original article) offers some potential new details about the main characters in the film, though only speculation as to which actor will be playing which role. Here are the rumored names of our new heroines, complete with brief character descriptions.
- Erin Gabler: an academic on the tenure track at Columbia.
- Abby Bergman: a pop parapsychologist who hunts ghosts for a living, who also used to be Erin's colleague and co-author.
- Jillian: Abby’s ghost hunting partner.
- Patty: an MTA employee who comes across the main ghost.
It appears that certain strands of Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd's planned Ghostbusters sequel might still exist in the reboot script, since that movie was reportedly going to be about a group of Columbia students who take up the Ghostbusters name. Fans of the original movies will no doubt be glad to see that the main characters won't just be gender-flipped versions of Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston.
The report also revealed two other key characters that are currently being cast. The main antagonist is described as a "creepy mechanical genius," and Sony apparently wants to hire Peter Dinklage for the role. There's also what sounds like a new version of William Atherton's character in the form of supernatural skeptic Martin Heiss, who sets out to debunk the Ghostbusters' antics after seeing videos of them taking out ghosts. Here's where things get interesting: the report claims that Sony wants Bill Murray for the latter role.
Even though Murray's famous opposition to the idea of another Ghostbusters movie was one of the main reasons that Ghostbusters 3 never got made, he does seem to be a lot more onboard with the idea of an all-female Ghostbusters team - and McCarthy and Wiig were two actors he personally recommended for roles. However, during the hacking attacks on Sony last year, e-mails emerged showing evidence of attempts to legally strongarm Murray into appearing in the film.
Without greater context for those e-mails it's hard to say what the relationship between Murray and Sony is like right now. Perhaps he'll be a bit more amenable to making an appearance now that McCarthy and Wiig are involved, but don't bet on him taking a role just yet.
Ghostbusters will release in U.S. theaters on July 22nd, 2016.