To bring the iconic ’80s franchise “Ghostbusters” back for a new generation, director Paul Feig called on previous collaborator and very funny lady in her own right — screenwriter Katie Dippold.
Dippold (pictured below) wrote “The Heat,” which saw Feig direct one of his “Ghostbusters” leading ladies Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock all the way to the bank for a domestic box office take of $160 million in 2013.
It’s no surprise Feig called her again to help update the beloved Bill Murray–Dan Aykroyd movie, which sees McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon tangle with the paranormal on the streets of New York.
The job was a no-brainer, but not without potential cons, Dippold told TheWrap.
“I just couldn’t say no but I knew it was probably a choice that I could easily regret later. I had a few friends that were like, ‘What are you doing?’” Dippold said. “But it was impossible to say no, because I love ‘Ghostbusters’ so much. It’s everything I enjoy doing as a writer.”
After the project was set up under Amy Pascal‘s eponymous production company at Sony, Feig and Dippold focused on characters before story
“I just kept trying to focus on the joy of the original,” she said. Joy wasn’t the only thing circulating on blogs and social media when the film was announced — both the rebooting of the franchise and its all-female cast inspired a lot of chatter, a decent amount of it unpleasant.
The backlash is repeatedly referenced within the film, as the new Ghostbusters try to prove themselves by posting videos of the spirits they face off against on YouTube.
“Ain’t no bitches going to bust no ghost,” Wiig reads from a fictional comment that could easily be a direct quote from any number of real ones on the movie’s trailer.
Wiig’s character is a tenure-track physics professor at Columbia University, ashamed of her deep-seated belief in the paranormal until her former partner in crime (McCarthy) pulls her back in when spooky activity surfaces in the city. For the first two acts, however, the general public and the scientific community (represented entirely by men) don’t buy that the ghosts are real.
Wiig’s scientist stresses to no end over their approval — going to reckless lengths like releasing a captured ghost from its container to prove its existence to a famous debunker (played by Murray).
“We wondered, ‘What would it be like today to be a scientist who believes in ghosts, and would that person try to hide it?’” Dippold said. “It started from there and then I’m certain that everything we were seeing online was seeping in. You write the world that you live in, and at that time we were living in a really tough space.”
The film’s reception was positive after it began screening for critics, but there have been lingering questions — like those over breakout McKinnon’s engineer character. An oddball who spends most of the film tinkering with proton packs and nuclear cores, many thought the character to be a lesbian, bisexual or just plain fluid but was noticeably not self-identifying.
“I feel a little weird talking about it without talking to Kate and Paul, the star and the director. But … Im not trying to be coy — the first words I would use to describe that character is ‘outside the box,’” Dippold explained.
“Someone like that would never have any kind of labels. If Kate had a strong opinion and felt her character was fully a lesbian I would’ve said, ‘Great.’ But that character just couldn’t be given a label She’s fully-formed and ahead of all of us,” she concluded.
“Ghostbusters” opens nationwide on Friday.