We were less than thrilled about the male-lead Ghostbusters movie that was announced weeks after the all-female Ghostbusters cast was revealed. But now the director Paul Feig has finally commented on the new male crew that will be following his team.
Choosing to elaborate more on the internet's outrage at the initial announcement of a female-lead Ghostbusters than the later announced Channing Tatum and Russo brothers Ghostbusters movie, Feig explained to Variety:
"The Internet is really funny – I love it, but I hate it at the same time... The first wave when you make an announcement like that is overwhelmingly positive. Everyone's so happy and you're like, 'This is great.' Then comes the second wave and you're like, Oh my God. Some of the most vile, misogynistic s— I've ever seen in my life."
As for the Russo brothers and Channing Tatum-led Ghostbusters, Feig explained that he was a fan of the directors and had heard some "rumblings" about this additional picture but is focused on his own films. Also, "Who knew there were so many ghosts to be busted in the world?" Ha. He then calls his ladies kick-ass and admits, "I would not want to go into battle without them."
Not to beat a dead horse's ghost, but I'm still fairly crushed about the way this whole thing played out in the public. It's hard not to see the reveal as a big middle finger to the female-lead cast. Couple that with the quotes new head of Sony's Ghostbusters studio division Ghostcorps (and former Ghostbuster) Dan Aykroyd gave to SiriusXM AFTER the female cast was revealed back in February, and it's hard not to see an odd bias against the female crew from the get-go.
True, Aykroyd greatly praised the "tremendous" cast of women as "masters," and went on to say the movie has a really "great, great" script from Fieg that they're going to "work on, and make better." He also admitted that the franchise needed a reworking.
But then he elaborated on the plot, which has absolutely no ties to the original two films, implying that the later (still not announced at this time Russo movie) would potentially be the real sequel. Talking about the past Ghostbusters scripts Aykroyd worked on, he said:
[T]here's three drafts of the old concept that exists... And we're going to be able to salvage some of it... We're going to be able to use it some day. Let's get this one made and that will reinvigorate the franchise, and then we'll go on to maybe doing a more conventional third sequel as we were planning and another idea I have for it.
The more conventional one presumably being the male-driven movie. Sigh.