Paul Feig, the director and co-writer of the all-female Ghostbusters (2016), is still blaming Trump supporters for that spectacular flop.
Good grief, this guy has had eight years to do a little introspection about just how bad that movie was and how the marketing seemed determined to alienate the core fans. But, no, he’s still blaming us…
“The political climate of the time was really weird, with Hillary Clinton running for office in 2016. There were a lot of dudes looking for a fight,” the little crybaby told the Guardian. “When I was getting piled on, on Twitter, I’d go back and see who they were. So many were Trump supporters.”
“Then Trump came out against us. 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.”
That’s true. Trump said that. And it was hilarious.
Then Feig claims, “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,” he said, “but people brought a lot of baggage.”
Let’s just go to the science, shall we?
Point one: If the box office failure of Lady Ghostbusters was caused by American sexism towards all-female reboots, why was Ocean’s 8 a hit about 18 months later?
Point two: How did Trump fans create this failure when Hillary Clinton won almost 66 million votes? You don’t even need 25 million of those voters, fewer than half, to find yourself with a box office hit. Roughly speaking, about 15 million people paid to see Lady Ghostbusters here in North America. Assuming all 15 million of those admissions were purchased by Hillary voters, that leaves 51 million Hillary voters who didn’t bother to see the movie. So…
How is it the fault of us MAGA Bros. that 51 million Hillary Clinton voters didn’t want to see an all-female remake of Ghostbusters?
Point three: Lady Ghostbusters opened pretty well with $46 million. This means that what killed it was…
Point four: The movie was just bad — sexless, uninspired, choppy, not a single memorable scene or character, and no big laughs.
Point five: Let’s not forget that the people involved in the movie chose to capitalize and lean into the online anger, rather than ignore it. Instead of rising above it to say this is a movie for everyone, the filmmakers sought to further divide the fans under the stupid belief they could score at the box office by turning out Hillary’s supporters. How dumb was this? And this? And this?
Point six: Trump supporters have the power to kill a Hollywood project? Yeah, I wish…
All that aside, if the movie had been any good, it wouldn’t have lost tens of millions.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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