Ghostbuster Cast Confirmed! Kristen Wiig And Melissa McCarthy Will Lead Female Line-Up

The new female Ghostbusters crew has been confirmed – and it’s made up of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and ‘Saturday Night Live’ stars Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon.

Director Paul Feig – the man behind ‘Bridesmaids’ and ‘The Heat’ – confirmed the news on Twitter, after The Hollywood Reporter broke news of the negotiations.

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He also tweeted a release date – July 22, 2016.

Feig has penned the script with Katie Dippold – who also wrote ‘The Heat’ – after hitting back at critics who have decried the idea of a female cast taking over from Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson’s original foursome.

He said: “A lot of people accused it of being a gimmick. I guess I can see the cynics’ view of it, but for me I just love working with funny women.

:People said, ‘Why don’t you do a mix?’ I’m just more interested in the idea of lady Ghostbusters. It’s the way my brain works.

“I want ours to be scarier than the original, to be quite honest. Katie Dipold and I are so focused on wanting to do scary comedy. We don’t want to hold back.”

There has been much excitement over the casting on social media, the Screenrant website’s editor Andrew Dyce offering us some helpful visual stimulus…

Thus far plot has been kept under wraps, but HitFix has some idea of a synopsis. If you’d rather know nothing, then there are vague spoilers ahead…

According to HitFix:

“Erin Gabler and Abby Bergman are the first two leads, and as the film begins, they are former colleagues. They co-wrote a book about the paranormal together, then went in different directions. Erin works for Columbia, and she’s getting close to tenure, while Abby is more involved in the pursuit of ghosts, with a new partner named Jillian. In a world where there are thirty different “Ghost Hunters” style TV shows out there, the set-up makes sense, and it sets up a tension between serious academic motives and mainstream pop parapsychology.”

And despite Bill Murray not wanting to return to the movie as Peter Venkman, it’s thought that Feig is courting him for a different role.

According to reports, he’s being sought to play the role of Martin Heiss, a debunker of supernatural claims who wants to discredit the Ghostbusters, rather like the Walter Peck role in the first movie.

So whether you approve of a reboot, it’s on. There’s going to be dogs and cats, living together… Mass hysteria… basically.

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Image credits: Twitter/Rex Features