Paul Feig Is Proposing a Franchise We Can Get Behind

By Vivian Kane | Celebrity | June 22, 2016 |

By Vivian Kane | Celebrity | June 22, 2016 |

If Paul Feig keeps up his current streak of saying exact perfect things, we might have to start making a weekly column out of it. Or daily, maybe, since it was only yesterday that Feig dropped the proverbial mic on the misogyny surrounding the troll-led discussions of the new Ghostbusters.

In an interview with Empire, Feig shifted the conversation from Ghostbusters to Spy. You’ve seen Spy, right? I’m not sure if I just exist in a bubble and didn’t hear it talked about much, or if it really is, even still, upsettingly underseen. Because oh wow is that movie phenomenal. And Feig knows it. He created a perfect vehicle for Melissa McCarthy, and that’s clear. But the supporting characters in this movie are equally brilliant, not least of all Jason Statham’s face-off-machine-obsessed Rick Ford.

Ford is such a great character, in fact, that Feig isn’t done with him. He says Spy is “the first thing [he] did that [he] set up to be a possible franchise and Melissa is dying to do it.” And Statham’s Ford is a huge part of the story he already has planned out.

“Susan Cooper is one of my favourite characters I’ve ever come up with,” continues Feig, “but Rick Ford is possibly the one I’ll take to the grave with me. Will he get any more self-aware in the sequel? No, god no. He’ll get less self-aware.”

This is incredible news. In the current climate of unending sequels, this is a franchise we can firmly get behind. How can Rick Ford possibly get less self-aware? I have no idea, but I’m deeply upset that we can’t find out right this instant.

Here’s to a hundred sequels!

Via Uproxx. Header photo via Esquire.