Director Paul Feig Says His GHOSTBUSTERS Reboot Is a Victim of 2016’s ‘Anti-Hillary Movement'

Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot wasn’t well-received by audiences, and now director Paul Feig is putting the blame on 2016’s “anti-Hillary movement.” During a recent conversation with Julia Cunningham on The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM, Feig talked about the vocal negativity that came after it was announced that his film would star Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. As you know, the director received some harsh backlash regarding the casting.

“Some really brilliant author or researcher or sociologist needs to write a book about 2016 and how intertwined [our film was] with Hillary [Clinton] and the anti-Hillary movement. It was just this year where everyone went to a boiling point. I don’t know if it was [having] an African-American president for eight years [that] 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.”

Feig added:

“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.”

While I know that some very vocal people didn’t care for the all-female cast of the film, others were fine with it. For me, it wasn’t the cast that bothered me. I like the actresses and a lot of the work that they had done previously. I just didn’t care for the film’s story or how the cast was utilized. There could’ve actually been a really good Ghostbusters movie with this cast, but I just didn’t care for Feig’s take on the story. I blame the director, not the cast. Hell, in my opinion, the worst part of the movie was Chris Hemsworth!

Then there are the fans that simply didn’t like seeing a beloved classic film franchise like Ghostbusters get a reboot… a reboot that wasn’t even that good. I think that’s where most of the negativity surrounding the film was brewing. I’m personally not a fan of reboots in general, it doesn’t mean that I’m all up in arms about women in power. I have a wife and three daughters, my whole life is surrounded by women in power! In the end, Feig or anyone for that matter could have announced that Ghostbusters was being rebooted at any time, and the fans would have flipped the freak out!

I guess, in the end, what I’m getting at is why can’t people just not like a movie? Why does its failure have to be tied to Hillary Clinton or some political agenda? I don’t really care about anyone’s political views, in the end, Ghostbusters is just a movie, nothing more. Some people liked it, some people didn’t. Everyone has different opinions on the matter, which is fine!

I don’t know, what do you all think about Feig’s comments?

Via: Variety