Paul Feig Wants To Do A ‘Ghostbusters’ Sequel

Ghostbusters reboot director Paul Feig would “love” to return for a sequel, the filmmaker tells Yahoo.

“We would love [to make another movie]; it’s really up to the studio,” Feig said during a visit to CinemaCon in Las Vegas, in town promoting upcoming Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively thriller A Simple Favor. “We had so much fun making that movie.”

The reboot of the beloved 1984 Ivan Reitman-directed comedy may have been fun for Feig and stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon, but less so for studio Sony: the redo grossed just over $229 million worldwide in the summer of 2016.

With its costs pegged at $144 million plus marketing, its box office performance made a sequel unlikely — a belief reinforced by Ghostbusters costing a reported $70+ million loss for the studio.

Despite a fair 73% “fresh” rating from critics on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the gender-swapped replacements of original stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson didn’t go over well with fans from day one; in the end, the reboot was highly criticized for being little more than a sillier retread of the original.

Still, the film has its fans: Ghostbusters was awarded Favorite Movie at the 2017 Kids’ Choice Awards, beating out Captain America: Civil War and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and has inspired countless cosplay and Halloween costumes since dropping its first trailer — a movement Feig is happy with.

“The movie’s just really built an audience in the two years since it’s been out. I get contacted every day by people who are such fans of it, and so many women who are inspired by seeing women in science,” Feig said.

“I will go to my grave so proud of that movie, and so proud of what that cast did in that film.”

Last year, Feig pointed to off-screen flak surrounding the movie for hampering its success at the box office, telling Vulture:

“I think it kind of hampered us a little bit because the movie became so much of a cause,” Feig said. “I think for some of our audience, they were like, ‘What the f–k? We don’t wanna go to a cause. We just wanna watch a f—kin’ movie.’”

He continued: “It was a great regret in my life that the movie didn’t do better, ’cause I really loved it. It’s not a perfect movie. None of my movies are perfect. I liked what we were doing with it. It was only supposed to be there to entertain people.”

Feig’s mystery-thriller A Simple Favor opens September 14.