Looking for something to watch this week? Overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices? Ready to give up and take a nice long walk outside on a crisp fall day?
If you haven’t been paying attention: Leslie Jones endured a barrage of disgusting racist and misogynist attacks that ultimately forced her to take a leave of absence from Twitter. The culprits? The very vocal contingency of Ghostbusters fans (aka Ghostbros) who have been decrying Paul Feig’s reboot because it features an all-female cast. Original Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd has come out in support of Jones, and he’s got some seriously harsh words for all the haters.
Last year, Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak was denied release in Chinese theaters thanks to an old provision in the country’s censorship code, which bans films that feature cults and superstitious elements. It looks like a similar fate has befallen Ghostbusters, as Paul Feig’s reboot will not be hitting theaters in the world’s second largest film market. But it might not entirely be about that whole ghost thing.
As you probably recall, the trailer for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters became the most-disliked movie trailer in YouTube history thanks to a certain contingency of very vocal fans of Ivan Reitman’s original film. It would appear that those fans are at it again, this time taking to IMDb, where they’re spamming the ratings for Feig’s reboot to ensure it has a low user score. Unsurprisingly, the majority of voters are men between the ages of 18 and 44. And while the exact point of this little exercise in anti-Ghostbusters activism is unclear, what is apparent is that these guys aren’t letting this whole thing go anytime soon.
That TV spot for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters is called “The Slimers.” And if you watch through to the end, you see Slimer driving a car (ghosts can drive?) with a female Slimer. I guess that makes her a Slimette? I don’t know. Either way, she has hair and bright lipstick. Ghosts have hair? And lips?
When angry fans made the trailer for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters the most disliked movie trailer in the history of YouTube (now at 880,000 thumbs down and counting as of this writing), their accompanying comments repeated the same complaints. The digital effects looked bad. The broad physical comedy didn’t work. The cast was gallingly female. (Recent example, all spelling errors theirs: “why woman ? im not sexist but i think its not good to use them.”) Over and over, they returned to one singular conclusion: The new Ghostbusters would not only ruin fans’ collective childhoods, it would ruin the original Ghostbusters.
The cast of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters are set to appear on The Graham Norton Show on June 23, but a couple of clips from their delightful episode have popped up online, including one in which Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy — at Feig’s urging — perform their “folk lady” version of the classic theme song. As an added bonus, their sharply-dressed director gets slimed, straight-up Nickelodeon style.
It’s become impossible to talk about Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters without acknowledging the unsavory reactions from fans of the original who have declared the reboot cinema non grata (to say the least). It’s also been suggested that perhaps some words of support from the original cast members might help soothe the aggressive fanbase, that if their so-called childhood heroes give Feig’s film the stamp of approval (as if their willingness to cameo in the film wasn’t endorsement enough), maybe the anti-reboot fan contingent would settle down and come to accept a crew of female Ghostbusters. That’s not the case, as OG Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd shared his positive thoughts on Feig’s reboot, inspiring a slew of predictably angry reactions.
Paul Feig, director of the upcoming Ghostbusters remake, is normally one of the more polite and gentile men you’ll ever meet. But with the intense vitriol he has faced over his latest project, even the politest director would reach his breaking point and that breaking point may have arrived...
Sigourney Weaver was the only one of the core actors from the original film (minus Rick Moranis who retired from acting) who was not going to be appearing in the new Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig version. But, as it turns out, Weaver will be appearing in the new Ghostbusters movie, alongside Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Dan Aykroyd and Annie Potts.
Ghostbusters is currently filming in Boston, but aside from the occasional paparazzi photo, we haven’t seen anything official from the upcoming reboot. That all changed today as director Paul Feig tweeted out a photo of the new costumes that will be worn by the leading ladies, and they look pretty great.