Don’t let anyone fool you. A $45 million opening weekend is a disaster for the “Ghostbusters” reboot. By some reports, the “racist, man-hating” remake cost a whopping $250 million to produce and promote. After theaters take their cut, this feminist garbage-fire will have to clear somewhere around $500 million worldwide just to break even, and that’s not going to happen.
Domestically, it will be lucky to reach $125 million, which is half of what the original grossed way back in 1984. When you account for inflation, the remake will gross about 20% of the original.
Sony is putting the best face they can on the debacle. After “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (another ill-advised remake) failed to launch that particular franchise, the studio has some practice in this kind of spin.
The idiocy of putting a social justice agenda onto a $250 million a summer tentpole is one thing. To do it with something as beloved and iconic as “Ghostbusters” is a level of insular arrogance surprising even from Hollywood.
While the box office blow-out was playing out in the center ring, there was also the spectacle of watching Leslie Jones, of the remake’s four stars, publicly light herself on fire as she freaked out over Twitter not shutting down the accounts of everyone who taunted her.
To be clear, I don’t want to in any way downplay the appalling vileness directed at Jones. The tweets she highlighted Monday represent the worst kind of racism you can imagine. These people are pure garbage and deserve to be treated as such. That is not my point.
My point is that, for whatever reason, she is acting as though she is only person in the world who has ever received hate hurled at her via social media, and by the time night fell, she had publicly melted down and surrendered with an apparent threat to run away and quit Twitter altogether:
“Ghostbusters” director Paul Feig tried to talk her down with some excellent advice, “F*ck the haters.”
Couple things:
1) Anyone with opinions is regularly attacked on Twitter. It’s the nature of the beast. Every day of every week I could all melt down over the personal attacks. Regardless, what was Jones and the “Ghostbusters” crew expecting? They gang rape a beloved franchise with their obnoxious politics, call anyone who objects a sexist pig, and then base much of the film’s marketing on personal martyrdom. That doesn’t in any way excuse the tweets directed at Jones, not even close, but if you’re going to deliberately poke a hornet’s nest, you best not crumble into a million precious pieces when the hornets arrive.
Anyone with opinions is regularly attacked on Twitter. It’s the nature of the beast.
2) If Leslie Jones wants to set herself up as a strong feminist example, publicly melting down and running away is a terrible message to send, especially to young people.
Did the parents of America’s social justice warriors not teach their children the rhyme that is crucial to raising a well-adjusted adult: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
All of this comes down to one sad fact. Left-wing feminism is not about creating strong independent women, it is about creating insecure, neurotic victims that require the intervention of a fascist police state.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC