A role in the all-female “Ghostbusters” movie in 2016 should have been a dream come true for then-“SNL” cast member Leslie Jones. Instead, IndieWire reports that the film ended up a nightmare for the comedian, making only 1% in salary to some of her co-stars and receiving death threats on Twitter for even starring in Paul Feig‘s film.
READ MORE: ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ Sequel Adds Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt To Cast
Jones talked about the racist backlash to her being in the reboot in her new memoir “Leslie F*cking Jones,” which Rolling Stone excerpted in their most recent issue. She also confirmed she made “way less” than fellow actresses Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Melissa McCarthy on the picture. How less is “way less”? Jones made only $150k for her role on the film, while the headlining McCarthy’s salary was $14 million. The math comes out to Jones making just 1% of what McCarthy did for the film.
“It was made clear to me at times during the process that I was lucky to even be on that movie,” wrote Jones, “but honestly, I was thinking, ‘I don’t have to be in this muthafucka,’ especially as I got paid way less than Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig. No knock on them, but my first offer was to do that movie for $67,000. I had to fight to get more (in the end I got $150K), but the message was clear: ‘This is gonna blow you up — after this, you’re made for life,’ all that kind of shit, as though I hadn’t had decades of a successful career already.”
And while “Ghostbusters” was a modest success at the box office, taking in $229.1 million off an $140 million budget, Jones wrote that “in the end, all it made for me was heartache and one big-ass controversy.” Following the movie’s theatrical release, Jones had to delete her Twitter account for 24 hours after receiving racist and heinous messages. Jones also wrote that there were “multiple attempts to hack her page,” which she was in contact with then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about. The pair worked together over DMS to protect her account. Wrote Jones: “[Dorsey] was aware that I was being brutally attacked with racial slurs and worse” and “put people on my account to monitor it because someone is always trying to hack me.”
But the whole experience soured Jones on the film. “I’d tried to fight back — I was a comic — I was used to someone heckling me, so for every piece of bullshit on Twitter I had a reply…I can’t believe anyone would do this shit to someone, anyone, for working,” Jones continued. “This is awful. I am in a movie. Death threats for something as small as that?”
In her memoir, Jones also spoke about the “Ghostbusters” franchise rebooting after the 2016 film, and the perceived dig director Jason Reitman, son of original “Ghostbusters” director Ivan Reitman, made on a podcast about the movie she starred in. Reitman said his 2021 reboot was “trying to go back to the original technique and hand the movie back to the fans,” a statement Jones found “unforgivable.” And even though Reitman attempted to clarify his comments, Jones wrote, “The damage was done. Bringing up the idea of giving the movie ‘back to the fans’ was a pretty clear shout-out to all those losers who went after us for making an all-female film.”
For what it’s worth, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” made $204.4 million off a $75 million budget,” so it’s not like it blew Jones’ film out of the water. In any case, Jones continues to star in various films and TV, winning an MTV Award for Best Comedic Performance in 2021’s sequel “Coming 2 America.” She also has a recurring role in “Our Flag Means Death,” with the second season premiering on Max on October 5. But “Ghostbusters” certainly wasn’t the breakout role Jones was promised, and it sounds like the experience still stings to this day.
