There’s something strange in the neighborhood… of Weymouth, Massachusetts.

The Southfield Highlands apartment complex has been abandoned. Homes and communal buildings have been boarded up, windows have been smashed, and a gnarled mannequin with a goatee lies abandoned in a parking lot. For lack of a better phrase, it’s a ghost town.

At the center of it all is a large white abandoned hangar out of which all hell is breaking loose… literally. But we’re no longer standing an hour outside of Boston. We’re in Times Square, New York City. Glowing ghosts carrying colonial muskets, ghosts in zoot suits, ghosts on stilts, ghosts with top hats and twirling canes have flooded the streets in front of a sweeping green screen, and all that stands between us and them are four women decked out in tan jumpsuits and proton packs.

This is not the Ghostbusters movie you remember. “I think the amount of action and the level of it in this is going to surprise people, so it’s a lot more badass,” said Melissa McCarthy after she was dangled upside down by a ghost (really a wire, but movie magic will make it a ghost) and tossed around the set. In another take, Kristen Wiig flies into the air only to land unscathed and fire a shot into a mischievous ghost, while another sequence sees her eviscerate an encroaching horde with a grenade. Elsewhere, Kate McKinnon is getting knocked around until Leslie Jones emerges and shouts, “It’s chipping time!”

Fandango joined the four newly minted Ghostbusters on the set of this summer’s blockbuster as they fought back against the phantom menace. If there’s one thing to take away from our time in the thick of the paranormal war, it’s that this is not the chick flick all the Internet haters have made it out to be.

 

Who You Gonna Call?

 

The idea of making another Ghostbusters movie has been in the works for quite some time. When director Paul Feig (The Heat, Bridesmaids, Spy) was courted, the plan was to make it a sequel to the original two installments. “I couldn’t do it if I had to do it as a sequel,” he said. “It didn’t resonate with me.” While out walking one day, he asked himself, “OK, if I had to do this, how would I do it?” And the answer seemed to present itself to him.

Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson originated the Ghostbusters, but Feig wanted to work with hilarious women and an origin story about a group of scientists discovering the existence of the paranormal in a modern world for the first time. Sony loved the pitch, and the movie started filming for a release the following summer.

“We need all-new characters because there’s never gonna be a new [Peter] Venkman,” said screenwriter Katie Dippold, who wrote Feig’s The Heat. “Bill Murray’s Venkman, that will never change. So we just tried to come up with four new characters that we thought were really funny and then we came up with dynamics between them.”

 

Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy)

 

Abby’s whole life has been about ghosts. It’s what brought her together with her high school BFF, Erin, and she grew up to make a career out of it — even if she’s a pariah in the scientific community.

“My character, which I love, has never lost her passion and belief in [the paranormal],” said McCarthy. “So she’s full throttle. I believe in it. I speak about it. This is what I do with my life.” Dippold added, “She’s truly just very passionate about ghosts and what’s on the other side of it all.”

As with the other ladies, McCarthy brings an improv background to the film, though there’s not as much riffing as one might hope in Ghostbusters. “Some scenes it comes out a lot and then others, especially the action stuff,” explained McCarthy. “There’s so much on timing to keep everybody safe that I don’t want to be the one who’s like, ‘And another thing…’ while somebody else gets clocked with a ghost out of a machine.”

One such moment happened during a ghostly chase scene in a subway set. The actress described, “I gave a couple good shoves because, first of all, he was coming at us really fast on a wire. The other thing was, and I’ve known the guy for like 10 years, but he went through like six hours of prosthetics.” Wiig added, “He was glowing with blue lights, and his teeth, and I mean he was above us going at a speed and we sort of had to run away from him, and, yeah, there was one take where he went faster than we were running.”

“She really lost it,” giggled McCarthy, who said she’s excited her kids will finally be able to see what their mom does at work. “But that’s the only thing. I’m like, Is it going to scare them? But I’m going to take ‘em anyway.”

 

Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig)

 

Erin went the route of academia after parting ways with Abby after high school. “I became a professor, and I sort of just leave [paranormal studies] behind and shove it away,” said Wiig, explaining that her character hides this part of her life from her fellow educators.

McCarthy attributes the shift to Erin “wanting to maybe not be on the fringe and made fun of as much, wanting to be more legit.” Wiig continued, “I think deep down she believes but she stuffs it, she doesn’t want to and she doesn’t want anyone to know especially at work.” But then something — presumably ghostly — happens. Whatever it may be, the event brings these friends back together after losing touch for years.

Dippold wanted to start fresh with the Ghostbusters script, so she didn’t even read any of the Ghostbusters 3 scripts that were circling Sony before she came aboard. Nevertheless, she had to tweak the characters a bit to customize them around the new cast. “Kristen’s character was pretty serious,” Dippold said, “but then Kristen Wiig doing it, she just adds this fun that only she can do.”

 

Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon)

 

“Her name is Jillian Holtzmann, but she only goes by Holtzmann,” said McKinnon. “She’s the machine expert of the gang and she is a crazy genius, ‘crazy’ being the operative word, and she has really cool clothes.” From her massive hair swoop, to her bulging glasses, to her necklace which is the letter “U” with a screw through it (get it?!), she’s hard to miss. 

Abby has been working alongside Holtzmann for a while already before Erin comes back into the picture, and most of the gear the new Ghostbusters use come from her. The part seems tailor-made for McKinnon, who made a name for herself through similarly eccentric personas on SNL.

“I think the character is like me, and that is kind of upsetting,” she said, “because she’s weird and I think it just basically is me, and so people might not believe that what they’re seeing is an actual person, but it is just me.” Dippold added, “She just thinks outside the box even in social norms, and also she sees people stressed out or something, she’ll just wanna coke it further.”

For McKinnon, who’s been reading physics books since she was young and found a passion in staring into the soul of a circuit board, the most enjoyable part is watching the characters develop the tech. “It’s actually a huge part of it. This story is of these women coming together and also evolving the technology to be able to go on this mission, and so watching the gadgets grow and evolve throughout the movie is a big part of it and is for me the most fun.”

 

Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones)

Holtzmann’s “kindred spirit” comes in the form of Patty Tolan, and it may not be a coincidence that Leslie Jones improvs alongside McKinnon on SNL. “Kate has literally become my bitch,” said Jones. “That is my bitch for life. Like, she is my heart and soul.”

In terms of Patty, her particular brand seems to jive most with the tech genius. “They’re both kind of crazy,” Jones continued, adding that Patty is “the normal person who comes into this situation. All of them already know about ghosts and gadgets and paranormal. She’s like the person that would be an audience that would come into the group and have a regular human experience.”

Patty is working for the MTA as a ticket taker when she becomes one of the first people in the city to spot a ghost. Jones explained, “She came in and reported it to [the Ghostbusters] and decided that they were hella cool and that she wanted to be a part of that club. MTA was easy to leave.” One good thing to come out of the MTA are the Ghostbusters' uniforms. “Those jumpsuits come supposedly from the MTA room,” said Kurland. “Patty tricks them out and they become what you eventually see.”

Feig described the first time experiencing Jones’ comedic stylings as “a comedy hurricane blew through my television” — and he knew he needed her for Ghostbusters. “That was the hardest thing about putting this cast together was, I know some of the funny people I’m dying to work with, but I need four very distinct personalities that complemented each other, didn’t step on each other and brought four different energies to the table, and when I saw Leslie for the first time I was just like, ‘That’s the thing I need.’”

 

Kevin (Chris Hemsworth)

You might not expect him to be one of the funniest actors in the entire film, but Chris Hemsworth had the cast rolling with laughter. “Chris Hemsworth made us break maybe more than anybody, which seems like, don’tcha have enough?” said McCarthy. “Haven’t you been given two scoops to begin with? But he is a really, really funny guy and one of the best improvisers I’ve ever worked with.” Hemsworth’s first day on set brought McCarthy to tears with his riffing skills. “I’m sure he must think we’re awful,” she said, adding, “With Chris I think we just really didn’t expect it and he’s really good and really funny.”

In place of Janine, Annie Pott’s famous security in the original films, is Kevin, a devilishly handsome hipster receptionist to the scientists who even gets to wear the Ghostbusters uniform at one point. The biggest, though unintentional link between he and Janine are the glasses. Costume designer Jeffrey Kurland said, “Chris wanted to wear the glasses. He wanted to create a character that was different from his persona, and we thought, well, the glasses would be great for that.”

“Let’s just take a moment and give Chris his do right now. God damn. That’s a good-looking man,” Jones joked. “He’s too normal for how good looking he is.”

 

Rowan

So you’ve seen the four new Ghostbusters, you’ve seen some of the ghosts, you’ve seen the sexy secretary, and you’ve even seen Slimer in the trailers. What about the villain? That part of the film is still very hush-hush as the cast and crew were nervous about spoiling the film. But, we at least have a name: Rowan.

“Our villain, so to speak, is like a very smart, genius-type himself,” said Dippold. “[The Ghostbusters are] very smart people. They’re scientists, and there’s someone who’s equivalent to them. Whereas they want to do good, he does not.” The film’s first trailer provided more detail when Wiig’s Erin explained that someone is using a device to enhance paranormal activity.

Does that mean there will be no Zuul? Dippold laughed, “It’s a new story.” 

 

In with the Old, in with the New

 

Feig and Dippold are huge fans of the original films. In fact, they say every member of the cast and crew are obsessed, and they approached the reboot with that in mind. “We really just both said to ourselves, ‘What would we be really sad if it wasn’t in there?’” said Feig. “‘What would be sad if there was just no acknowledgement that it existed?’ and really just took it from that.”

For Dippold, she understands why fans would want to see more of the world established in the originals, but she wanted to embrace the fun of seeing the supernatural come to life for the first time and how people react to ghosts. “There’s something so exciting about that and fun that I didn’t want to lose that, and so then it became more about even if it’s not in the original Ghostbusters world, the big thing for me was trying to get as much of the heart and spirit of that as possible in this.”

Dippold said that they crammed in all the Easter eggs fit to print in the reboot, but there are three staples fans will recognize immediately.

 

Proton Packs

You can’t have Ghostbusters without the ghost-busting proton packs.

The technology of Ghostbusters is an incredibly influential part of the film as a whole. “I didn’t want them to be handed technology,” said Feig. “I think it’s so fun that they’re scientists. They all have different branches of science who really build this from the ground up.”

“Our goal was to make all the science seem as real as possible,” said Dippold. “Dan Aykroyd was so good at that fake science mumbo jumbo, and it’s so charming and fun, so we’re trying to still keep that spirit alive at the same time.” The screenwriter initially met with physicists at Columbia University in New York to learn basic concepts, while the props department consulted with a scientist from MIT to help make the technology look “homemade.”

 

“My Googling will only take us so far,” joked Dippold.

 

ECTO-1

While the gals were fighting ghosts on the green-screened set, a familiar red-and-white vehicle sat in the way, way back of the hangar. Feig had been active on social media all throughout the film’s production and revealed the first look at the new ECTO-1 on Twitter way in advance, and it channels the original design. The hearse with ambulance accouterments features the signature Ghostbusters logo and Slimer hood ornament, perfect for chasing down agitated spirits.

 

Slime

…Lots and lots of slime. According to Kurland, part of the Ghostbusters jumpsuit includes rubber gloves because “the slime gets very sticky and the gloves work out very well, and they’re easy to rinse off.” Based on what we’ve seen in the trailer, the ladies will need them: “That stuff went everywhere, by the way. In every crack. Very hard to wash off.”

 

Girl Power!

 

“Everyone thinks when we said female Ghostbusters that this means it’s gonna be a chick-flick version of Ghostbusters,” said Dippold. “I see it so many times and it’s so crazy. I see so many times, like, ‘Oh they’re gonna trip in their high heels.’ And it’s like, ‘What do you think we’re trying to do here?’”

While Feig said the first wave of Internet comments about the concept of a gender-bent cast was mostly positive, the second wave was purely misogynistic. “I didn’t expect this level of vitriol and also it was gross,” he said. “The beginning, it was purely misogynistic because it hadn’t been really announced that it was a reboot. Now a lot of people say that they’re upset because it’s a reboot and I get that. I think that’s completely legitimate, but that first wave was just all anti-lady.”

Even amidst all the hate mongering, Feig was mildly sympathetic. “What I get is that it was a very male movie, a lot of boys grew up with this thing, it was a bonding thing for them, and I get that. My thing was I’m not gonna erase all the old copies of Ghostbusters. They exist. But I’ve been told I’m ruining people's childhoods so many times that what are you gonna do?”

The cast, too, were perplexed by the backlash because they all understood what the film and concept were about. “To me it makes perfect sense, all that superhero stuff,” said McCarthy. “I played Spectreman and I was always Spectreman where I would chase everybody else. I think any kind of underdog that’s fighting good vs. evil, I don’t think that has a gender to it.” Jones echoed the sentiment, saying, “It’s not a man thing. It’s not a woman thing. It’s a Ghostbusters thing.”

“I definitely want the people who have this really condescending image of what (a) I would do with it and (b) you would expect women to do in a movie, I’d like to definitely prove them wrong,” Feig added. “But beyond that, you just try to be true to it.”

 

Ghostbusters will hit theaters on July 15.