Paul Feig, director of 2016’s all-female reboot of Ghostbusters, partly blames Donald Trump for the racist and sexist criticism the movie received from online trolls.
During a recent interview with The Guardian, the filmmaker looked back at all the hate the action-comedy, starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, faced following its debut.
“The political climate of the time was really weird, with Hillary Clinton running for office in 2016,” he recalled. “There were a lot of dudes looking for a fight. When I was getting piled on, on Twitter, I’d go back and see who they were. So many were Trump supporters.”
It didn’t stop there, as Feig said Trump, who went on to become the U.S. president, only added fuel to the fire with his rhetoric.
“Then Trump came out against us,” the Jackpot! director said. “He was like, “They’re remaking Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. You can’t do that. And now they’re making Ghostbusters with only women. What’s going on?” and got all upset.”
Feig continued, “Everybody went fucking cannibal. It turned the movie into a political statement, as if to say, ‘If you’re pro-women, you’re going to go see this. If you’re not, then …’ I didn’t think it mattered at all that the main characters were women, but people brought a lot of baggage.”
The Simple Favor filmmaker also explained why he opted for a Ghostbusters reboot rather than a sequel to the original 1984 and 1989 films, which starred Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts.
“Bill [Murray] had publicly said he didn’t want to do another Ghostbusters at that point,” Feig recalled. “Harold Ramis had died. Dan and Ernie were there, but half the team felt weird. It had been 30 years and Bill and the gang were so iconic; I didn’t want to do anything that hurt the original movies.”