Paul Feig will have plenty of options when he finally decides to start locking down a cast for his "Ghostbusters" reboot." Gillian Anderson has already said she’d be down for a role, while Rebel Wilson and Jennifer Lawrence have both met with the director about the project. And according to internal emails from Sony, there are plenty more interested.
In a message sent to Ivan Reitman in early October, Sony honcho Amy Pascal reveals the reboot "isn’t a sequel to the 80s movies and it is gonna be totally original with completely different characters and our job is to find a clever way to connect the movie to the original franchise so that we can use all the assets and everything that is great about the original franchise."
"Paul’s movie is gonna be the first one and from what I’m hearing jennifer lawrence and Emma stone and Melissa McCarthy and Amy schumer and liszzy [Lizzy] Kaplan [Caplan] just to name a few have already said thy wanted to be in….,” she added. And frankly, none of these names is surprising. McCarthy obviously already has history with Feig thanks to "Bridesmaids" and "The Heat," Schumer is starring in pal Judd Apatow‘s "Trainwreck" next summer, and Caplan logged time with Feig with a brief stint on "Freaks & Geeks." Only Lawrence and Stone are new to the Feig mix, but it’s easy to see why they’d want to be involved, and we’d wager the feeling is mutual from the filmmaker.
Of course, there are a lot of steps involved to making any of these names a reality, so we’ll have to wait and see. But perhaps more intriguing is the non-involvement of Bill Murray, who has pretty much been uninterested in playing Peter Venkman again. At the end of October, Sony documents reveal they considered using legal means to twist his arm into making an appearance in the reboot.
“In order to more fully evaluate our position if Bill Murray again declines to engage on ‘Ghostbusters’, AG requested that we identify ‘aggressive’ litigation counsel with whom we can consult to evaluate our alternatives and strategize,” an email from David Steinberg, the head of Sony’s legal department, said. “…Personally, while I’m fine with aggressive, I think we are in much worse shape if this goes public so seems to me we should look for someone who isn’t seeking the spotlight.” Listen, we know the "Ghostbusters" franchise is valuable but trying to strongarm a reluctant Murray into appearing seems like the wrong way to go…
Thoughts? You know where to leave ’em. No release date on "Ghostbusters" yet but apparently a summer 2016 slot is being eyed. [The Daily Beast]