Over the past decade, there aren’t many blockbuster films that have caused as much controversy as the 2016 remake of “Ghostbusters,” directed by Paul Feig. From the moment the first trailer dropped on YouTube, a social media movement began to discredit the film and do everything in its power to make sure the film didn’t succeed. Why? Well, mainly because the film starred four women instead of the original all-male cast. So, when the film finally arrived in theaters, the fact that “Ghostbusters” wasn’t all that great (it’s not completely terrible, either), the film was pretty much DOA.
In a new interview with The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM, Paul Feig was asked if he had any final thoughts on what happened with his “Ghostbusters” film and why he feels the project was so maligned, well before the film even hit theaters. And as you might expect, the filmmaker credits the political climate of that year for tanking his film.
“I think some really brilliant author or researcher or sociologist needs to write a book about 2016 and how intertwined [‘Ghostbusters’ was] with Hillary [Clinton] and the anti-Hillary movement,” Feig said. “It was just this year where just everyone went to a boiling point. I don’t know if it was having an African-American president for eight years teed them up or something, but they were just ready to explode… By the time, in 2014 or 2015, when I announced I was going to [make] it, it started.”
He continued, “There’s tape of Donald Trump going, ‘And the Ghostbusters are women, what’s going on?’ It’s crazy how people got nuts about women trying to be in power or trying to be in positions that they weren’t normally in. It was an ugly, ugly year.”
As mentioned, it’s important to point out two things—1) “Ghostbusters (2016)” isn’t a great movie and it’s not a surprise that not-good movies don’t do well at the box office, and 2) the film still made more than $128 million in the US and approximately $230 million worldwide, which wouldn’t be terrible for many comedies, at all, but isn’t great when you factor in the $144 million budget. So, while Feig is probably right that there was an anti-“Ghostbusters” movement that was fueled by a misogynist message, there’s really nothing all that shocking about a mediocre film doing mediocre box office.
But hey, everything in our society is political now, so why not make this political too?
To back up Feig’s earlier point about Trump talking about the film, here’s the clip he’s referring to: