Paul Feig Talks Female Ghostbusters and Fan Expectations

Director Paul Feig wanted the female Ghostbusters in his upcoming reboot to be “badass.” The new film features an all-women central cast, with the Ghostbusters played by Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.

For the movie, set 30 years after the 1984 original, the Bridesmaids moviemaker explained he wanted his heroines to go full throttle and take on supernatural characters.

“I wanted my ladies to be badass,” the director told Empire magazine. “I wanted them to get in over their heads and fight ghosts.”

Though the project has had its fair share of decriers who were skeptical about a remake of Ivan Reitman’s classic, Feig isn’t too worried as he has experience in working in the action genre having wrote, directed and produced comedy movie Spy, which also starred Melissa. The 53-year-old added that he is focused on a delivering a film which can stand next to the first, which featured Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, while pushing the busting of ghosts in a more visceral direction.

“I like action movies,” he shared. “I got to play with that in Spy, and it felt very natural here. It makes it fun and very unexpected for people when they hear its four lady Ghostbusters. It may be quite different than what they think.”

The remarks echo Paul’s previous comments in which he hoped the public would hold fire from criticism until they have seen the finished product.

“The problem with the Internet is people pre-judge things,” he told Britain’s The Independent newspaper last month. “There are waves of comments that are pure misogyny, but there’s also a whole other group of people who have problem that it’s a reboot. I get that, but the film hasn’t even come out yet. Give it a chance.”

Ghostbusters is set to hit theaters in the U.K. and U.S. on July 15, 2016!