"I collect spores, molds, and fungus."
August 25, 2014 5:52 PM   Subscribe

"Hollywood's pathological fear of being political has made them blind to the changes that women's friendships have undergone over the last forty years. We're so far past women's relationships revolving around men that no one is even offended by the suggestion that women have relationships that don't revolve around men. Bridesmaids was a smash among women AND men, and so was [Paul] Feig's follow-up, The Heat, another female driven, non-romantic comedy." (Hat-tip: Mick LaSalle)

ScreencrushReel Women: Can a Gender-Swapped "Ghostbusters 3" Lead to More Female-Centric Geek Films?
"With a female-led Ghostbusters reboot in the works and the recent announcement that Marvel has turned Thor into a woman, it seems that taking male characters and gender-swapping them could become the latest trend. While it's great to show audiences that it shouldn't matter if their heroes are male or female, it would also be great to see more women taking the lead in their own franchises or original properties. But maybe gender-swapping is the gateway drug; maybe this is the way to train audiences to accept women in leading cinematic roles."
Bonus links

A Roundup of Every Ghostbusters 3 Rumor From the Past 25 Years
Paul Feig's Top 10

Previously: "…can you get them to stop playing that fucking song on the radio?"
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (46 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
I nominate Chelsea Peretti for the role of Female Venkman.
posted by wabbittwax at 5:59 PM on August 25, 2014 [6 favorites]


A bit more background - from 2008 NYT - on Feig: "The Trouble with Paul Feig", and his Wikipedia page.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:00 PM on August 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


A female-led Ghostbusters would be neat, but I'm a little worried that no matter what, Ghostbusters 3 would be a bomb. At the very least, I can't imagine any sequel ever capturing the magic of the original, which is kind of a thing of it's time and location.

A Black Widow movie, on the other hand, would be completely awesome and a guaranteed money fountain. It's insane they're not working on it.
posted by heathkit at 6:16 PM on August 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


Black Widow is an insanely boring character as presented in the Avengers movies. I'm sorry. Hawkeye too while we're at it.
posted by 2bucksplus at 6:21 PM on August 25, 2014 [8 favorites]


I'd love a new Ghostbusters of any gender if they did it in an '80s style but I'm sure that any new movie will be some horrible color-corrected, edit-every-three-frames, jerky-camera CGI-fest.
posted by octothorpe at 6:32 PM on August 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


I just wanted to say that I feel Black Widow as a character was completely destroyed in Captain America The Winter Soldier as a flirty vice to the Cap's straight man. It was painful and tedious and really really turned me off where they might take the character now.
posted by M Edward at 6:34 PM on August 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Completely destroyed, really?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:43 PM on August 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm just hearing some of these comments in the voice of the Comic Book Guy. Come on guys, al together now: "Worst. Black Widow. EVER."
posted by happyroach at 6:47 PM on August 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


Well, "crossing streams" might be interesting.
posted by vapidave at 6:55 PM on August 25, 2014


I just wanted to say that I feel Black Widow as a character was completely destroyed in Captain America The Winter Soldier as a flirty vice to the Cap's straight man.

I dunno. I got the impression that the flirtation was an affectation, a tool used by a hyper-competent spy - and Cap saw through it. They were allies first, and as they began to trust each other, friends. They strayed on a number of occasions into opportunities for romance, but it was clear that 1) they didn't do it for each other and 2) the mutual respect radiated off the screen. Colleagues and equals and actual friends. Natasha and Nick don't have a lot of those. Cap does. The three of them cherish every one they get.

Also, The Heat was underrated, it was so funny from beginning to end. The best gag was Melissa McCarthy's family - her very, very Boston-Irish brothers, her very, very Boston Italian dad. And then her accent, I remarked to my wife, "How on earth does a Boston cop have a Minnesotan accent? How does the rest of her family not notice?"

Then Jane Curtin shows up and you understand... and the best, absolute best part is that Curtin is a native of Boston, she's just incredibly good with accents.

Actresses drove that movie, and it was so enjoyable.

At one point, I plotted out a four-season television reboot of Ghostbusters, as I am a nerd and prone to such things. The only white, male character was an out of work actor the other three hired to pretend to be in charge when dealing with various authorities and to do some of the more menial tasks of Ghostbustering.

"You realize you're not actually in charge, right?"
"I once ate a bug. I wanted to see if tasted like a tiny lobster. I am in no way in hell in charge, even if you paid me to be. You're not paying me to be in charge, right, just playing the role of... "In Charge" like the proverbial Charles?"
"Nope. Let's roll!"

One of the characters was a Combat Librarian who knew when and how she was going to die, so she smoked like a chimney and jay-walked at will.


posted by Slap*Happy at 7:06 PM on August 25, 2014 [16 favorites]


I nominate Rashida Jones as Egon, Kristen Schaal as Ray, and Aisha Tyler as Winston.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:12 PM on August 25, 2014 [12 favorites]


Slap*Happy, if people can go about making Star Trek fan films, then your Ghostbusters should happen, too. I would watch the hell out of that.
posted by RakDaddy at 7:34 PM on August 25, 2014


FFS can we all agree to stop saying Marvel has "turned" Thor into a woman or "gender swapped" the character? She is someone else who is holding the hammer as acting in the role of thunder god, she is not Thor, Thor is another person who also exists. It frustrates me to no end that we have another character, a woman, doing something so awesome and people keep reducing it to "oh it's just Thor with boobs added like some cosplayer did it."
posted by trackofalljades at 9:05 PM on August 25, 2014 [7 favorites]


One day there'll be a script going around for a mainstream film about a smart, resourceful character, able to cope and even kick butt in a some pretty high-powered settings -- maybe a Tom Clancy kind of thing -- a script which is in no way pitched to a narrow market segment but for general audiences, the kind which when you read it you're conditioned to picture a white male actor in the lead, and they'll cast a woman of African descent, and nobody will say anything but "hey, good choice, she'd be perfect." I can dream, can't I?
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:17 PM on August 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


I just wanted to say that I feel Black Widow as a character was completely destroyed in Captain America The Winter Soldier as a flirty vice to the Cap's straight man.

You seem to be reducing her role to a fraction of the scenes she was in. I thought she had more character development than anyone else in the film. Which isn't saying a lot, but we get a full dose of her radically different perspective on mission objectives, and her solo role in tying up the end where doing the right thing has a unique set of consequences for her was quite unlike anything anyone else had to deal with.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:58 PM on August 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Mr. Palmcorder and I frequently bat around our dream cast for an all women-of-color A-Team reboot. We're pretty sure we'd want Angela Bassett to play Hannibal and Margaret Cho to play B.A. Our other choices vary with the weather, but Sandra Oh and Salma Hayek are always strong contenders for Murdock. And IMO, Retta would make a spectacular Face.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 12:13 AM on August 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


...or you could have all but one of the characters be of color, and your token white lady could be Linda Hamilton as BA. ;)
posted by trackofalljades at 12:18 AM on August 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


Trackofaljades, that's brilliant.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:30 AM on August 26, 2014


They should let Tatiana Maslany play all the ghostbusters.
posted by Pendragon at 4:40 AM on August 26, 2014 [9 favorites]


Please...Just let Ghostbusters go. Let. It. Go.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:06 AM on August 26, 2014 [4 favorites]


Gender-swapped Inglourious Basterds, with the ladies as Yugoslav Partizankas. They could kill Mussolini. Part of me would laugh if they gender-swapped him with a scenery-chewing Margo Martindale.

(Obligatory history sidenote: in WWII, there was a female Yugoslav double agent on the Allied side, with the wonderful code name Snark.)
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:08 AM on August 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


One day there'll be a script going around for a mainstream film about a smart, resourceful character, able to cope and even kick butt in a some pretty high-powered settings [snip] the kind which when you read it you're conditioned to picture a white male actor in the lead, and they'll cast a woman of African descent

If memory serves me correctly, the character of Ripley in Alien was written as a man, and when they cast Sigourney Weaver they just didn't rewrite it. Hey presto, instant hero, by virtue of being a strong character.

(The other thing I love about Ripley is that unlike many cinematic heroes, she's the one who insists on following procedure. If Ash hadn't disobeyed her and let Kane on board the Nostromo, most of the crew would have survived.)
posted by Gelatin at 5:14 AM on August 26, 2014 [6 favorites]


If there's a chick-centered Ghostbusters, it must involve Natalie Morales. Even just as a guest star.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:23 AM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


...and they'll cast a woman of African descent, and nobody will say anything but "hey, good choice, she'd be perfect."

Sanaa Lathan, Alien v Predator. Nobody ever treats her (or the woman/women doing security) as anything but a generic badass, and nobody ever mentions her ethnicity.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:38 AM on August 26, 2014


Well, "crossing streams" might be interesting.

I think I saw that video once.

Ghostbusters 3 is a bad idea. A remake of Ghostbusters is also a bad idea.

And, I just saw Lucy, so the idea of a Black Widow movie is... not appealing. And even in the comics, she is an Avenger because.....?

That said, if anyone read the last arc of Avengers Assemble with Spider-Woman, Spider-Girl and Black Widow? You could do that with a Ghostbusters vibe. It would be awesome.
posted by Mezentian at 6:19 AM on August 26, 2014


I nominate Rashida Jones as Egon, Kristen Schaal as Ray, and Aisha Tyler as Winston

I would watch this movie, but Aisha Tyler seriously needs to be Venkman
posted by bitteroldman at 6:32 AM on August 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


"oh it's just Thor with boobs added

Coincidentally the new Journey Into Mystery series has Thor getting breasts via plastic surgery, but it's an unrelated story Bendis had been planning for several years.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:59 AM on August 26, 2014


If memory serves me correctly, the character of Ripley in Alien was written as a man, and when they cast Sigourney Weaver they just didn't rewrite it. Hey presto, instant hero, by virtue of being a strong character.



The script for Alien was unisex so theoretically any character could be "made" a woman. This blog post implies that Ripley being a woman was decided pre-casting. Aliens makes a lot more of Ripley being female, with the whole motherhood riffs, which I can't decide is good or not.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 7:21 AM on August 26, 2014


I would watch this movie, but Aisha Tyler seriously needs to be Venkman

Retta. Retta needs to be Venkman.

Though I guess what I really mean is that I want Donna from Parks and Rec to be Venkman. She can do the Venkman smug flirting perfectly.
posted by The Man from Lardfork at 7:32 AM on August 26, 2014


LUCY was the Black Widow movie. And it was mostly a reminder that ScarJo is a terrible, terrible actor.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 8:01 AM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


A Black Widow movie, on the other hand, would be completely awesome

No, it really wouldn't, you're just defaulting to her because she's the only woman on the roster. She's boring on her own, as is Hawkeye unless they're going to do a Hawkguy movie. A movie pairing them might work.

What would be awesome is Marvel tapping some of its other amazing female heroes. Sadly Storm is off the table, but what about Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel/Captain Marvel? Kelly Sue DeConnick did some amazing things with the character, and Guardians of the Galaxy has already opened the door to the Cosmic Marvel mythos so she could easily fit into the universe.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:58 AM on August 26, 2014


She's boring on her own

Because there's no way a movie about an awesome spy character could possibly be interesting? It's not like there's a fifty-year franchise with more than twenty movies banking the other direction on that. Now, if you're saying Marvel can't live up to the creative vision of the Broccoli folks because they're too stuck on their own sequelitis, maybe you're on to something.

As for Ghostbusters, as a child of the 80s, I'm kind of in the "let it die" camp unless it's more like a franchise of Inspectres (which sadly they seem to have already made a B-movie of, which I hope made the designer some cash).
posted by immlass at 9:58 AM on August 26, 2014


Despite my defense of Black Widow's role in the film as much more than arm jewelry for Captain America, I can't say I'm impressed with Black Widow as a character. I've never even noticed her in comic books and ScarJo's performance is astonishingly unriveting for what ought to be a sexy badass babe in form-fitting black. I think some part of that is her restriction of her facial expressions to that narrow subset that the camera really likes; no amount of combat acrobatics seems to overcome the overall stiffness it gives her.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:08 AM on August 26, 2014


Until the current glut of Marvel Studios movies, I thought of her mostly as a minor character in 1980's Daredevil comics as one of his exes.

A Black Widow movie could be cool, but, yeah, I'd like to see more of the women of Marvel up on the screen.

That said, I would watch the HELL out of a tv series about Maria Hill, Pepper Potts, and Melinda May scheming, administering, and kicking ass (usually but not always in that order) and occasionally having Black Widow show up.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:44 AM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


If you haven't been reading the newest Black Widow series, you're missing out on on some stunning Phil Noto art plus Natasha and Maria Hill being no-nonsense badasses who frequently clash on procedural grounds.

I could and would see a movie centered around this Natasha, no question. Plus her cat is adorable.
posted by nicebookrack at 2:44 PM on August 26, 2014


Let's not forget Salt. Like Alien, it was written for a male lead.
posted by lhauser at 7:54 PM on August 26, 2014


Let's not forget Salt.

Request denied.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:59 PM on August 26, 2014


That said, I would watch the HELL out of a tv series about Maria Hill, Pepper Potts, and Melinda May scheming, administering, and kicking ass

I have some good news and some bad news.
That's not gonna happen.... but on the other side of the scale: Jessica Jones.

If you haven't been reading the newest Black Widow series, you're missing out on on some stunning Phil Noto art plus Natasha and Maria Hill being no-nonsense badasses

I liked an earlier set of stories (was it Secret Avengers before this one?) where she was trying to atone for her crimes in the red ledger. I'll grant you the art is awesome, but the plot seems to meander a little. Still, it's better than Elektra,
posted by Mezentian at 7:10 AM on August 27, 2014


Black Widow can be a lot of fun, but IMHO the movie version of Black Widow has only been "okay" so far. I would have preferred different casting - I picture Black Widow as being a bit more like Errol Flynn. ScarJo always seems like she wishes she was somewhere else.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:20 AM on August 27, 2014


Does anyone know why the movie Black Widow has no Russian accent? It seems like that's such a huge part of the character, that she's an outsider to the US, and to the sunny moral code of its corn-fed heroes, that losing it was a pretty big loss to establishing a personality.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 8:41 AM on August 27, 2014


Does anyone know why the movie Black Widow has no Russian accent?

This is why. I mean, seriously.
posted by happyroach at 11:20 AM on August 27, 2014


They could have totally done that with Milla Jovovich and hung a big fat lampshade on it and it would have been totally awesome.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:34 AM on August 27, 2014


Here's something related I just came across at The Daily Dot: Get spooked at the ultimate 'Ghostbusters' fan art exhibit.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:41 PM on August 27, 2014


I want to know why Iron Man 2 wasn't this story. With that outfit.
posted by Mezentian at 6:03 AM on August 28, 2014


On the actual topic, has anyone missed the Honest Trailer for Ghostbusters?

If you saw it first run it'll make you feel old.
posted by Mezentian at 5:09 AM on August 29, 2014


Something I noticed while watching Ghostbusters in a theater tonight: When the Ghostbusters cross the streams to close the portal, watch the Terror Dog on the left side of the frame. While the one on the right is freaking out, the one on the left is apparently intrigued by the beam and is reaching gingerly toward it, like a cat investigating a new toy, when the explosion happens.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:34 PM on August 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


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