Paul Feig Responds to ‘GHOSTBUSTERS’ Haters

To say that the first GHOSTBUSTERS trailer was negatively received would be a hell of an understatement. If you’d gone solely by the YouTube comments, you would’ve thought the movie was the biggest slight against the medium in all of film history. The second trailer for the flick was released only this morning, and while some fans seem to believe it was a slight improvement over the first, the hate on the Facebook comments for the video still seem to be ever-relentless.

I’ve already personally written and talked quite extensively on the topic, so there’s no real need for me to re-tread the ground I’ve already covered. As of the second trailer, my opinion on the matter hasn’t changed much (though I admit these trailers aren’t the hottest thing around).

Paul Feig, the director of the film (as well as director BRIDESMAIDS and SPY) originally spoke out in defense of his actors, but apart from that, has remained largely silent regarding the negative backlash of the trailers. In an interview with Monsters magazine, however, the director finally spoke his mind (via Collider).

“Fellas, we have over 60 million hits. So let’s put it in context a little bit. … All I can ask is, people, either give us a chance, or you don’t have to see it. I’m really proud of it. … I think it’s fun. I’m so proud of my cast. I think the cast is so good, and they can stand in the footsteps of who came before, because they’re such funny people but they’re different. That’s all you really want out of a comedy at the end of the day, is something different and new, and to just see great people do it.”

Feig went on to address how fans’ opinions may have had more to do with their own expectations of what they want to see than the trailer they saw.

“You get your first bite of the apple watching a trailer. Everyone has a million different ideas of what this movie is going to be. I think a lot of people thought we were going to take the original script and just flip it, so that Melissa’s going to be Venkman, and Kate’s going to be Ray Stantz! And you’re like, ‘Well, no, we would never do that.’ Nobody knows what you’re doing, so it could be anything. … For us, we just needed to plant a flag and go, ‘Here’s kind of how some of the stuff in the movie is!’”

Feig then talked about the difficulty of marketing comedy through trailer.

“My movies, for some reason, are really hard to do trailers for, because my comedy all comes from context, really. I’m not the guy who’s like joke-joke-joke, and here’s a one-liner one-liner one-liner. I do have those, but you have to get to know the characters, you have to settle in with them to get to know their personalities, saying, ‘Oh, that’s funny because that character doesn’t normally do this.’”

The man definitely does bring up a good point. To me, SPY looked like a travesty of a film but it turned out to be one of the big surprises for me last year when it came out. But at the end of the day, this is nothing but internet chatter. We really don’t know how this is all going to turn out. It may end up being a travesty, or it may be a pleasant surprise.

But this is the kind of reaction you’re bound to get when changing up a beloved film. Many filmmakers are now well aware of how the internet reacts to things, and how it can be a double-edged sword for filmmakers and studios.

“People are always going to react the way they’re going to react, and that’s the joy and the terribleness of the Internet.”

What do you make of Feig’s comments. Do you agree, or do you still think GHOSTBUSTERS is setting itself up to be a total disappointment? Let us know your thoughts down below!

GHOSTBUSTERS hits U.S. theaters on July 15, 2016.

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SOURCE: Monsters (via Collider)

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