Hudson doesn't think making a female-centric reboot is a good idea, while director Kevin Feig is unconcerned with any criticisms that might arise due to the casting choice.
- Oct 10, 2014
AceShowbiz - Ernie Hudson who played one of the ghost-chasing men in the first two "Ghostbusters" movies is not too thrilled with the upcoming reboot which will be led by females. The actor was initially expected to reprise his role in "Ghostbusters 3" before Harold Ramis passed away.
"I heard it was going to be a total reboot, and that it would have nothing to do with the other two movies," he told The Telegraph. "If it has nothing to do with the other two movies, and it's all female, then why are you calling it Ghostbusters?"
"I love females. I hope that if they go that way at least they'll be funny, and if they're not funny at least hopefully it'll be sexy. I love the idea of including women, I think that's great," he continued. "But all-female I think would be a bad idea. I don't think the fans want to see that."
He added, "Maybe it will come out and be the most amazing thing, but in my opinion I think it would be wrong to do another movie that didn't include the guys. And that didn't include me!"
Kevin Feig ("Bridesmaids", "The Heat") will serve behind the lens and has enlisted "The Heat" scribe Katie Dippold to pen the screenplay for the reboot. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, he said it would be a total reboot, "It's not coming into the world that existed before."
"I wanted to come into our world where there's talk of ghosts but they're not really credible, and so what would happen in our world if this happened today...," he went on. "Everything is up for grabs right now. I look at this the same way a superhero movie launches where it's always fun to see, like, what are they going to do with the costumes this time? What are they going to do with the hardware this time? It's not going to be, here is the exact same stuff. It's also not going to go, screw you, if you like that stuff, it's all completely different."
He admitted it was a challenging task, "It just felt too difficult. How do you do it and not screw it up? But then it was bugging me for the next few days because Ghostbusters is such a great thing and everybody knows it, and it's such a great world. It's a shame to just let this thing sit there."
Though it's still in early development, he has already had a pretty clear idea of what they wanted to do with the reboot, "We have a very rough, rough outline that we're working with, but definitely know the basic story, know what we want the basic characters to do, know what we want the world to do and what the rules of our world are, but nothing I want to discuss obviously. It's cool. I think it's a really strong origin story that feels real - as real as a ghost story is. It's going to be really fun and real. We'll make it scary and funny."
Of any backlash that might arise due to the all-female cast, the director said, "I just don't understand why it's ever an issue anymore. I've promoted both 'Bridesmaids' and 'The Heat' and myself and my cast are still hit constantly with the question, 'Will this answer the question of whether women can be funny?' I really cannot believe we're still having this conversation."
"Some people accused it of kind of being a gimmick and it's like, it would be a gimmick if I wasn't somebody whose brain doesn't automatically go to like, 'I want to just do more stuff with women.' I just find funny women so great. For me it's just more of a no-brainer."
