Some leaked Sony emails are racist, some leaked Sony emails are hilarious, and some leaked Sony emails contain delightful plans for the upcoming all-female Ghostbusters reboot. This one from Paul Feig is the third kind. In an email to Sony chief Amy Pascal, Feig spitballs a bunch of ideas for the film, including the team’s origin story, the movie’s villain, and what role Cecily Strong might play. (Here’s where we put the spoiler warning just in case any of these things end up in the actual movie.)
In the email, Feig explains the film is a reboot, not a sequel — humans aren’t afraid of no ghosts, he says, because they haven’t met them yet. He says his film will be “scarier and more hi-tech” than the original Ghostbusters: The villain will be a convicted murderer, ideally played by Peter Dinklage, who turns into a ghost after his execution is hit by “a supercharged electrical storm.” This gives him the power to raise an army of other ghosts, which could be made up of famous villains throughout history. It’s like Night at the Museum! These ghosts will in turn have to be busted by “four very different women” who have to “figure out in funny, scary and action-packed ways how to save New York City and the world.”
For greater franchise opportunities, Feig tells Pascal that the Ghostbusters will work for the U.S. government, but, because ghosts don’t officially exist, the government will have to continually disavow their relationship. He sees Strong as their bureaucratic nemesis who’s “always saying terrible things about them in press conferences and then apologizing to them behind the scenes.” Every time God closes a “Weekend-Update”-shaped door, He opens a Ghostbusters-sized window.
Elsewhere in the Ghostbusters movieverse, more leaked emails reveal Channing Tatum begging Sony to let him and Chris Pratt team up for a Ghostbusters spin-off, an amazing idea that will probably not happen now that we’ve commented on it. Sorry!
