Paul Feig is signed on to direct a female-led Ghostbusters reboot, but for a while, a traditional Ghostbusters sequel was planned. We're now finding out that Feig was actually approached to direct that sequel but turned it down.
In an interview with AlloCine, Feig said that he had been contacted several times to direct Ghostbusters 3, but that he kept turning it down. There were apparently scripts written for it, but Feig "wasn't excited about it."
He said that he later thought it would be exciting to put four women in the lead roles, but that if he did the movie he'd want it to be a reboot so he wasn't tied to the earlier films. He also wanted it to be a reboot so we could see the beginnings of the group, seeing them fight ghosts for the first time and first developing their technology.
So it sounds like for a while, a proper Ghostbusters 3 was indeed on the table, but that Paul Feig thought a female-led reboot would be much more interesting an exciting.
As we've previously reported, the new Ghostbusters will be a complete reboot with a female-led cast of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones of Saturday Night Live.
The movie will be directed by Paul Feig, who has previously directed other female-led comedies like Bridesmaids and The Heat. Feig will be writing the screenplay along with Katie Dippold, who he worked with on The Heat.
Ghostbusters is scheduled to hit theaters on July 22, 2016.