Paul Feig has opened up about the uproar surrounding his Ghostbusters reboot, which somewhat overshadowed the release of the 2016 supernatural comedy.
When it was announced that Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones would be starring in the reboot it immediately provoked a backlash from die-hard fans of the original, while its first trailer was savaged on YouTube, too.
Ultimately, reviews for “Ghostbusters” were more positive than negative, as it scored 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it only amassed $229.1 million from a rumored $150 million budget.
As that doesn’t include the costs of marketing, “Ghostbusters” is now regarded as a box office bomb.
During my recent conversation with Feig about his latest film “A Simple Favor,” which is released on September 14, I asked him about the furor regarding the “Ghostbusters” reboot, starting off the question by saying that the anger surrounding the film was the first time I had seen just how vicious the internet, and Twitter in particular, could be.
This provoked Feig to joke, “You and me both my friend, you and me both.”
Feig then took the short trip down memory lane for me. “I am so proud of the movie. It is funny, I just watched it for the first time the other day. I just look back on that period as being so ridiculous.”
“Literally, I think that everyone lost their minds. Look at 2016, it was a very weird year. It was the year that Hillary went down in flames and when Trump got elected and the year they were after us.”
“It just a very weird year. I like to think that all of the people that got so upset now go, ‘Oh God, we overreacted.’ But I don’t think they do.”
At this point I told Feig about how my two young nieces – Isla, 5, and Penny, 3 – are huge fans of the “Ghostbusters” film and repeatedly play with figurines and as the characters themselves.
“I truly appreciate that,” was Feig’s response. “That has been nothing but my experience, too. People have found it and love it.”
“The moment for me that was the greatest was, after all the crap we went through, that we ended up beating ‘Rogue One’ and ‘Captain America’ to win the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Award for Best Movie.”
“After having a bunch of grown men cry at me for destroying their childhood’s for 3 years it was nice to see that we had made a few kid’s childhoods nice with this movie. Which was nice. So I will take that anyway.”
