GHOSTBUSTERS Star Kristen Wiig Reacts to the Controversy Surrounding The Movie

The moment director Paul Feig cast women in the new Ghostbusters movie, some fans of the first two films lost their sh*t and started complaining like crazy about how the movie would be ruined simply because women are in the lead roles now. They aren't playing gender-swapped versions of the characters that appeared in the original — it's not like Melissa McCarthy is playing Venkman this time around — but despite the fact that this movie has a great cast, a good director, and not even one second of new footage has been released, there's still a large contingent of fans who have been very vocal about hating the very concept of this new movie. (Feig eventually got sick of it and WENT OFF on Twitter.)

One of the many awesome people involved with this film is Kristen Wiig, who is having a heck of a year after appearing in The Martian, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Welcome to Me, and more. In an interview with the L.A. Times, the actress was asked if she'd ever experienced working on a movie with so much controversy around it, and this was her reply:

No. And the fact there was so much controversy because we were women was surprising to me. Some people said some really not nice things about the fact that there were women. It didn't make me mad, it just really bummed me out. We're really honoring those movies.

I don't blame her. The reaction from many so-called "fans" of this franchise has been very disheartening to watch. I know there are plenty of people who are excited about the movie and many who are at the very least willing to see some footage before they start irrationally hating on it, but that angry mob mentality sadly seems to get the most attention. We'll find out whether the new version of Ghostbusters was worth all of this scorn (spoiler alert: it absolutely was not, even if the movie ends up being terrible) when it hits theaters on July 15th, 2016.