Interview (Written): Paul Feig

A Den of Geek interview with actor-producer-writer-director Paul Feig whose credits include Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, and the upcoming Ghostbusters:

Since Bridesmaids changed your movie directing career — I think I can safely say that — there’s been a two year release gap between your movies. This one is quicker — Spy was only last year. But how quick was it for you, and when did Ghostbusters come to you?

I was still in production on Spy, and was in Budapest. I got a call from Ivan Reitman [director of the first two films, producer of this one]. He called me because they had a sequel script that had been written for Ghostbusters 3.

Not to do a ton of backlog, if we go back to 2008, I was working on The Office as a co-executive producer. Gene Stupnitksy and Lee Eisenberg [writers on The Office] were hired to write Ghostbusters 3. I couldn’t believe that, it was so cool. I was still deep in movie jail at that point [Bridesmaids hadn’t hit by that stage] but I thought if there was ever a point in my life where I could be asked to direct Ghostbusters… well, I couldn’t even imagine it.

To flash forward, getting the call from Ivan… things were going well. Bridesmaids and The Heat had done well, and I was making Spy, and was happy with the way it was going. And suddenly I was a bit more cautious. Back in 2008, I’d have taken any version of Ghostbusters, but now I was like, I don’t know.

So I read the script. I thought it was really good, and by writers that I really like. Etan Cohen, an amazing talent, worked on it too. But the core thing of the sequel was, in all the scripts I’d read, that there was a new team that had come together. The old team had been forgotten. Then the old team showed up, and gave them the stuff and trained the new team up.

To me, it felt like it’d been so long since Ghostbusters 2 even. It felt like a big gap. I love Ghostbusters 2, but even the way they had to start that up with them being disgraced — how would the Ghostbusters be disgraced after they’d saved New York? Because they left it in a mess? Would they be mad at Neil Armstrong for leaving a golf ball on the moon?

It all added up to me saying I can’t figure my way into this. So I passed.

What changed?

Amy Pascal called me again [Pascal was head of Sony Pictures at the time]. And just as I was heading into post-production on Spy, she took me for lunch and asked ‘why don’t any of you comedy guys want to do this?’

I said it’s this giant thing. It’s like redoing The Godfather. And she said it’s this great franchise. It’s sitting there forever and it’s such a cool thing. But I left, saying no.

Yet I thought she was right. It’s such a great idea. I love the original movies so much, but there’s so much more you could be doing with that. The next day I got thinking: if I was going to do it, how would I do it? Let’s think positively. And I thought wait, I could do it with the funny women I know.

I’d been reading all these articles about the guys they were thinking of casting, and I know all those guys and I love them [the likes of Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill had been linked].

You’ve cast some of them in the past.

Yeah. They’re great. But at the same time, every time I’d read their names you’d suddenly start comparing them to Bill, Dan, Harold and Ernie. It clouds your head.

Paul Feig

Was that your thing, then? You needed to find a way to make it distinct?

Yes. How to make it distinct. And for me, how I could have creative energy to do it. The minute I thought of that, I thought now I get it. That gets me excited. The idea of seeing four hilarious women in those roles, there’s a lot you can do there. But then it was like, it could be a sequel then. They could be their daughters? And I was like, I don’t know. I didn’t like the idea of a world that had seen two ghost attacks. The idea of here’s your equipment, on you go.

I like origin stories. Iron Man is one of my favorite tentpoles of recent times. I thought, can I reboot Ghostbusters? Start again, wipe the slate clean? It’s been so long, and that’s the way in. I told my agent, and then about 15 seconds later, Amy called me. She said ‘you’ve had an idea’, and I said if I could reboot it with women, with the story I wanted to tell, I’d be all into it. And she said done: that was it.

That quick?

That quick, yeah.

A trailer for the movie:

For the rest of the interview, go here.