6 Things We Learned About Ghostbusters After Spending a Day on the Set

Updated on July 15, 2016 at 2:30 PM

It's a wet — like, really soaking wet — September morning on the Weymouth, MA, set of Ghostbusters, just about an hour's drive outside of Boston. Today, the cast and crew are in the middle of a major centerpiece scene that features ghosts from different eras and time periods battling it out with the Busters themselves in Times Square. An expansive greenscreen is set up in the former airplane hangar, which has been converted into a soundstage. One of the many dozens of extras sits huddled on a stool as she waits to be summoned. Head down, she's absorbed in her iPhone — the technology providing a comic contrast to the 1700s-era petticoats and undead, gray-ish makeup she wears.

As far as set visits go, there's very little of the scene to actually see given the aforementioned greenscreen. (There is a groan among several of the journalists assembled when we are told that Chris Hemsworth wrapped his role mere days before our arrival. He, too, will go unseen.) But it is a pretty entertaining thing to behold, anyway: the comedic powerhouses who make up the core cast — Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy, and Kristen Wiig — are stunting and improvising their hearts out in a near total visual and sensory vacuum . . . and nailing it anyway. In between takes, we talk with the stars and director Paul Feig about the making of the film, the don't-call-it-a-remake plot, and some of the bigger conversations around gender and nostalgia Ghostbusters has sparked, all before it even hit theaters.

Don't Call It a Remake . . . or a Sequel

Feig told us that the first iteration of the new Ghostbusters movie that was floated his way was a follow-up to the first two films but that he just "couldn't do it as a sequel."

"I was kind of like, maybe we could have them be the daughters. But what bothered me was I didn't want to do a movie about a world that has already been through two giant ghost crises," he explained. "I wanted to do an origin story about, like: what if, today, people believe in ghosts? And whether we believe in ghosts or not, the minute you hear someone citing ghosts, you think they're crazy. I liked the idea of that — coming into this world and discovering it."

They Feel the Pressure as an All-Female Cast . . .

McCarthy, Feig, and Wiig all told us they feel a certain "pressure" pioneering an all-female riff on a beloved movie but were heartened by the early response from women and girls.

McCarthy said she was especially touched by seeing girls in Ghostbusters cosplay at Comic-Con. "That just makes my heart feel good," she beamed. "I love Ghostbusters. I grew up with it. I just showed my two girls for the first time like six, seven months ago, and they loved it. I think any kind of underdog that is fighting good v. evil, I don't think that has a gender to it. There was somebody here yesterday that made her own suit and backpack, it was awesome. Especially because I have two girls."

Feig chalked much of the scrutiny up to the nostalgia around the original films — though admitted he'd seen a certain gender-specific vitriol. "I feel like there's pressure just on doing a reboot of Ghostbusters anyway, just because it's such a beloved thing, and you don't want to screw it up, and you don't want to copy the old one, but you don't want to pretend it doesn't exist." He added: "There's a weird set of expectations that went out, especially among the — I don't want to say misogynistic — but less enlightened crowd, who really think I'm making it into a romantic comedy, where there's going to be, like, a sequences of trying on hats and dress shopping." (To be clear: there won't be.)

But Aren't Letting Haters Kill Their Vibe

In Jones's words? "It's not a man thing, not a woman thing; it's a Ghostbuster thing."

The Stuntwork Is No Joke

In one of the scenes we witnessed, Jones's character ran, wielded a wood chipper, and generally battled it out with invisible apparitions for several lengthy takes. "I have lost 27 pounds with the [proton] packs and the running and everything," she told us. "It's pretty brutal. I take a lot of epsom salt baths. I get a lot of massages. I go to the chiropractor twice a week. I have to. I'm old — everything is breaking! I'm like Humpty Dumpty."

McCarthy, whom we watched being hoisted from the ceiling in a harness for several takes, oftentimes while hanging upside down, admits it was a more strenuous than usual set. "Our whole stunt department is amazing. [We get] a lot of bumps and bruises. The packs are heavy, and they are metal, so we've learned to, like, negotiate around those without destroying the other people."

The Cast Is Completely Chris Hemsworth-Obsessed

McCarthy insisted Hemsworth was so hilarious he made them break character "more than anybody" on set. "Like, don't you already have enough? Haven't you already been given two scoops to begin with? That was not our most professional day. There were tears. He must think we're awful."

Jones, for her part, took on a near-reverent tone when Hemsworth came up. "Ah, yes. Let's just take a moment and give Chris his due right now," she said, her voice dropping into a whisper. "God d*mn that's a good-looking man. A really good-looking man. He's really too normal for how good-looking he is. I'm so serious, like just seeing him talk to his kids, it's just like, how are you this beautiful and just normal?"

Why the Movie's Code Name Is FLAPJACK

Most movies have a secret code name to evade detection while they're shooting. As we drove closer to the set, we started to see the familiar yellow signs pointing us to crew parking, all emblazoned with the word FLAPJACK. Was there a story behind that choice? Feig explained:

"We needed a code name, and the first movie I ever made was a thing called Life Sold Separately, which was never released because I made it for $30,000. And I composed the music for it. And I didn't want my name to be all over the credits. So I thought: 'What should my name be?' and I said: 'Flapjack!' So I don't know, it's a weird genesis."