'Ghostbusters' Reboot Characters Detailed, Bill Murray Wanted For Non-Peter Venkman Role

Ghostbusters Bill MurrayOkay, so now that we know who will lead Paul Feig‘s actress-driven "Ghostbusters" — Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthyKate McKinnon and Leslie Jones — how will this deviate from the ’80s movies, and what will the characters be like? Well, it hasn’t taken long for those secrets to emerge. Over at HitFix, they’ve dug into the script, with Slashfilm breaking down the main quartet, into a digestible summary as follows: 

  • Erin Gabler is an academic on the tenure track at Columbia. Her former colleague and co-author is…
  • Abby Bergman, who’s more on the pop parapsychology side of things, and pursues ghosts for a living.
  • Jillian is Abby’s ghost hunting partner.
  • Patty is an MTA employee who comes across the main ghost.

We’ll leave it to you to guess which actress is taking which role, but the more interesting element is that Bill Murray — who has gone on record endorsing the all female reboot, but has balked at returning to the franchise — is being sought for a role. But the twist is that it’s not Peter Venkman. Rather, Feig wants him to play Martin Heiss, "a professional supernatural debunker," who crosses paths with the women when they post footage online, and he sets out to prove they are fakes. So yes, it’s akin to William Atherton‘s Walter Peck from the first film, and maybe Murray will be intrigued enough to return to the series, if only to switch sides, though I think his casting would be hugely distracting.

Meanwhile, Peter Dinklage is apparently wanted play the big bad, a "creepy mechanical genius."

Thoughts? Concerns? You know where to leave ’em.