‘Ghostbusters’ all-female cast to include Wiig, McCarthy

McCarthy and Wiig worked with Feig previously in 2011’s “Bridesmaids,” and McCarthy also worked with him in the 2013 film “The Heat” and the soon-to-be-released “Spy.”

In October of last year, Feig announced via Twitter that he and Katie Dippold, with whom he co-wrote “The Heat,” would write the newest “Ghostbusters” movie, noting that it would star “hilarious women.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Feig said that the movie is not going to be a sequel or a remake, but instead it will have an entirely new plotline, as if the 1984 “Ghostbusters” and the 1989 “Ghostbusters II” never happened.

For years, Feig said, a “Ghostbusters III” had been in the works, but Harold Ramis, who played co-star Dr. Egon Spengler, died, and the production was halted. Feig told EW that he decided an all-female cast would provide a way to do a movie reboot independent of the past storylines.

“Ghostbusters” starred Dan Aykroyd as Dr. Raymond Stantz, Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman, and Ramis, all out-of-work paranormal psychology professors who save the world from a ghost invasion. The original movie was a critical and commercial success, garnering two Oscar nominations and grossing almost $230 million in the United States since its release. The film launched a franchise, which produced television series, videogames, and a sequel five years after the original.