First of all: not a remake.
What is a remake, then? I was under the impression that they were ‘overriding’ the canon of the previous Ghostbusters movies, making this the only Ghostbusters.
Maybe semantics but a remake is a retelling of the same story. This is a reboot. Same concept, different story and characters.
Third of all, your Star Wars comparison is completely inapt. Star Wars was not a comedy so casting comedic actors would obviously not be a good idea. Furthermore, Sandler and James are two of the absolute worst comedic actors “working” today, whereas Ghostbusters features some of the best and freshest comedic talent of today (male or female) in McKinnon, Wiig, McCarthy, Jones, and etc. Whether or not they are at their absolute best here is a different debate.
I guess that’s a matter of opinion, but I’m not a big fan of McCarthy, I think she suffers from Johnny Depp syndrome. She seems to play the same character in every movie, and it starts to get old.
Well I can’t say for sure because I’ve only seen three McCarthy films (this, Bridesmaids, Spy) but she plays quite different characters in each. Actually I was surprised to see her play the straight man here. I though that’d be Wiig but she actually plays a kind of weirdo. McCarthy might be the most normal of the bunch which I wasn’t expecting.