The marketing material that we’ve shown so far for Ghostbusters has been very specific. Rather than giving us anything from the story, the footage has entirely either focused on the four characters who make up the titular team, or little tidbits of style that remind us of the legacy of the franchise. What we haven’t heard much about is the central villain of the new movie, but we picked up some details about that very important character while on-set of the film last year. They couldn’t say much, but you can expect an antagonist with smarts on the level of the Ghostbusters. And he's described as the "equivalent" to the Ghostbusters, but with some very bad intentions.
I had the wonderful opportunity to fly up to Boston, Massachusetts in the fall of last year where I had the chance to join a small group of other film journalists to visit the set of Ghostbusters, watch some of the production unfold, and chat with the folks responsible for bringing the movie to life. While speaking with co-writer Katie Dippold, who worked on the screenplay with director Paul Feig, we asked about what we could expect from the villain in the new movie, and while she could tell us much, she did provide some basic background information for fans. Said Dippold,
So our villain, so to speak, is a very smart genius type himself… I don’t want to give anything away… I guess I’ll say they kind of meet, they’re very smart people, they’re scientists and there is someone who is equivalent to them, but he, whereas they want to do good, he does not.
The Ghostbusters franchise may only consist of two villains, but they are still pretty damn iconic in the pop culture sphere (even as Ghostbusters II continues to be unfairly maligned). Of course, the first movie had Gozer The Gozerian and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man, who we won’t be forgetting any time soon:
And then the sequel introduced the world a few years later to the awesomely powerful Vigo The Carpathian, with his seriously hypnotizing eyes.
Both of those baddies set a pretty high bar for the Ghostbusters franchise, and while we don’t have much to go on about the villain in the upcoming reboot, hopefully we can expect a character who will ultimately become just as iconic. It’s been said that comedic actor Neil Casey, who previously worked with Paul Feig on the Yahoo! series Other Space, is playing an antagonist role in the blockbuster, but given that we haven’t seen him in any footage yet, we not only can’t confirm that, but can’t even confirm if he is the equally powerful by differently motivated character described above.
We have plenty more Ghostbusters coverage from the set headed your way very soon, so be sure to stay tuned, and get ready for the film in theaters on July 15th.
