Jason Reitman, who is directing the newest film in the “Ghostbusters” franchise has promised to “hand the movie back to fans,” and feminists who put their faith in an all-female reboot are not happy.
Last month, in a surprise reveal, Reitman, the son of the original “Ghostbusters” director, Ivan Reitman, released a teaser-trailer for a new “Ghostbusters” film. The new movie, which will hit theaters in 2020, will reportedly take place in the same universe as the original, and will star much of the original cast (albeit without Harold Ramis, who died several years ago), with the addition of a team of teenaged “Ghostbusters” protegees.
The film got the green-light in place of a sequel to 2016’s failed “Ghostbusters” reboot, which starred an all-female cast and lost Sony Pictures Studios around $70 million, according to last estimates.
Feminists and other assorted social justice warriors were already angry that the promised all-female “Ghostbusters” sequels were shelved indefinitely, and that Reitman, a male director, would take the helm of the franchise (at one point, star of the all-female reboot, Leslie Jones, even compared the switch-up to “something Donald Trump would do“).
Now, after an interview with “Vanity Fair” Tuesday, Reitman has unlocked an entirely new circle of social justice hell, telling the magazine that his new movie won’t just return “Ghostbusters” to its roots, but it will “go back to original technique and hand the movie back to the fans.”
“We went back and found the original physical vinyl letters that they used to create the Ghostbusters poster in 1984, [and] re-scanned them, then our titles guys reprinted them and we filmed the titles,” Reitman told the magazine. “We shot physical titles with a light-and-smoke effect ’cause that’s how they would have done it back in the day.”
“I’m not making the ‘Juno’ of ‘Ghostbusters’ movies,” Reitman added, referring to the teenage pregnancy drama that put him on the map. “This is gonna be a love letter to ‘Ghostbusters’… I want to make a movie for my fellow ‘Ghostbusters’ fans.”
Reitman clearly wanted to discuss his upcoming work, but fans of the all-female reboot, many of whom saw the all-female feature film as a “breakthrough” for feminists in Hollywood, regardless of the film’s quality, took Reitman’s comments as a slight on their beloved movie, and fired back on social media.
I had been looking forward to @JasonReitman’s take on GHOSTBUSTERS. Then he went and said that stupid shit about “handing the movie back to the fans,” as if the female cast had stolen the original from our precious little boy memories or something. I’ll probably skip it now.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) February 20, 2019
Some even lashed out at “Ghostbusters” fans who were negative about the last movie —which did not do well in theaters, among critics, or among fans — calling them “misogynists,” “sexists,” and “festering open wounds.”
Hi @JasonReitman! Can we have a chat about this little comment you made? Because let me tell you, hoo golly, does it not only completely disregard female fans of #Ghostbusters, it actively supports the behaviors of the festering open wounds known as Men Online. pic.twitter.com/TEViOIBLey
— Alicia Lutes (@alicialutes) February 20, 2019
So the director of the new film says he will give it ‘back to the fans’.
I presume he means the fans like me who do not hate women, but hated reboots and wanted a ghostbusters that was true to the original and set in the original world staring the original cast.
Not misogonysts
— Boogie2988 (@Boogie2988) February 20, 2019
That’s quite the sense of entitlement.
In reality, the last “Ghostbusters” movie wasn’t simply a failure, and it did not suffer from a lukewarm reception: it was universally panned by pretty much everyone who isn’t (or wasn’t) a social justice warrior. The movie, in fact, almost derailed the entire “Ghostbusters” franchise, per the Hollywood Reporter.
As of Aug. 7, Ghostbusters had earned just under $180 million at the global box office, including $117 million domestic. The film still hasn’t opened in a few markets, including France, Japan and Mexico, but box-office experts say it will have trouble getting to $225 million despite a hefty net production budget of $144 million plus a big marketing spend. The studio has said break-even would be $300 million.
The reception was so bad, Sony was exploring an animated “Ghostbusters” series in a last ditch effort to revive what was once a very profitable franchise.