UPDATED: Ghostbusters adds some heat as Katie Dippold joins Paul Feig on REBOOT writing duties.

Katie Dippold has joined Paul Feid to scare the absolute pants out of Ghostbusters fans.

Who better than the helmers of the fine action comedy The Heat to be in control of scripting the new Ghostbusters movie?

Well to answer that question, Katie Dippold (MadTV, Parks and Recreation, The Heat 2) has now been tapped to co-write the script that Feig has been messing around with for the long-gestating third installment (or reboot?! …hmmm) of the spooktactular franchise.

After years of development with the hopes of bringing back the original team (Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis), the death of Harold Ramis compounded with script setbacks have eventually led down another path that focuses on a new generation. Ivan Reitman – the original director who was set to return – also parted ways when Ramis passed away.

Feig agreed to jump on board, but insisted on a few twists. Consequently Feig wants the Ghostbusters to be an all female team with the project becoming more-or-less a reboot, as opposed to a continuation of the first and second movie (are you worried yet? …). We are.

Feig is seen as the go-to-man when it comes to female-friendly, run-of-the-mill comedic affair. He helped refine Kristen Wiggs career with Bridesmaids, and also Melissa McCarthy’s breakthrough cinematic role starring alongside Sandra Bullock in The Heat, which has generated more than enough dollar to merit a sequel.

Dippold collaborating with Feig is the icing on the cake (so to speak), as she penned the sequel to The Heat, and has previously honed her comedic voice working on NBC’s Parks and Recreation, as well as (un)funny sketches on MadTV.

Is this Feig’s next movie? We don’t know, …and frankly, …we don’t care too much. It is understood that Feig and his Feigco Entertainment parter Jesse Henderson will executive produce, …leaving Reitman acting as all round producer.

What was once deemed a pointless continuation of a dead franchise has now taken another turn for the worse by the looks of things. It now looks like a pointless standalone reboot.

As much as we are disheartened by this, we will keep you posted.

UPDATED:

Feig, talking to EW has confirmed that this is a total REBOOT of the series:

EW: So in the universe that you conceived, it’s like the world of the first two movies didn’t exist?
PF: Yeah. I love origin stories. That’s my favorite thing. I love the first one so much I don’t want to do anything to ruin the memory of that. So it just felt like, let’s just restart it because then we can have new dynamics. I want the technology to be even cooler. I want it to be really scary, and I want it to happen in our world today that hasn’t gone through it so it’s like, oh my God what’s going on?

EDITOR’S NOTE: 

We cannot express enough how much we DO NOT have an issue with female GBs. In fact, with the right cast & writing we think it could be a nice injection into the franchise. However, we are totally against a reboot of a series as timeless as Ghostbusters and that still looks and works as well as it does today – Marc