The leads Ghostbusters just found its villain through “SNL” writer Neil Casey.
Casey becomes the fifth comedian from the late-night program involved in this re-imagining, behind leads Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, alum Kristen Wiig and supporting player Cecily Strong. He also joins other lead Melissa McCarthy and fellow supporting members Andy Garcia, Michael K. Williams and Chris Hemsworth in the July 22, 2016-set comedy, currently in production in New York City.
In addition to writing for Lorne Michaels‘ show, Casey also dabbled his pen in “The Kroll Show” and “Inside Amy Schumer.” As an actor he’s performed in number of projects, including Feig’s Yahoo series “Other Space,” in addition to appearances on “Veep,” “Broad City,” and “The League.” This is not only the first studio movie he’ll ever do, but will only be his third movie role to date, behind indies I’m Obsessed with You (But You’ve Got to Leave Me Alone), the mixed-bag Derrick Comedy movie Mystery Team and the SXSW film Fort Tilden, which took home the Grand Jury Award for best narrative film in 2014.
Although the name of Casey’s character is known, Rowan, no other details are currently announced. There’s speculation he may be in the kin of Ghostbusters II villain Dr. Janosz Poha, based on his similar appearance to Peter MacNicol, or he could be playing a role similar to the original film’s bad guy, which manifested itself in Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) or, most likely, Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) much like Hemsworth’s character is the newest version of Annie Potts‘ Janine Melnitz.
Or he could, quite possibly, just be his own thing entirely. In today’s day-and-age, when studio projects seem to just be recreating everything from the originals (Jurassic World, Terminator Genisys), originality becomes an afterthought. [Deadline]
