The debut of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot is getting closer and closer, which means more details about the action/comedy film are starting to emerge. In a new interview with Empire, the director discussed the film’s mysterious bad guy named Rowan (Neil Casey), describing him as “the ultimate loner.”
Rowan wants to “bring some things back to this world” and trap ghosts to do so, but not exactly for the benevolent reasons the Ghostbusters are doing it. In a separate interview with Cinema Blend, screenwriter Katie Dippold described Rowan as a like-minded scientist to the Ghostbusters’ quartet of smart ladies.
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.
So, “a baddie scientist who is trapping ghosts for a nefarious purpose” seems to be the big takeaway. That’s not much to go on, but at least the film’s creators aren’t dropping spoilers left and right ahead of release.
Feig did, however, give fans one giant hint as to the future of the franchise on the big screen, confirming that the vague idea of a multiverse – where the new Ghostbusters could encounter the old pack – has been discussed in secretive meetings, as these things are. Since the new film is a hard reboot with no connective narrative lines to the originals, it seems that’s leading to some stumbling blocks.
I think they’re trying to figure out how to connect the old one with this. I’d like, if it’s a multiverse, something to base off this universe that we’re going right now.
The director is obviously fond of his creation, and hopes future films keep the base of it moving forward, which makes sense given the fact that it’s an entirely new cinematic sandbox for future creators and characters to play in. Still, we haven’t even seen the launch of the first film, so it’s hard to say how any of this will shake out.
Ghostbusters debuts in theaters on July 15.