Paul Feig Blasts Sony For Erasing The All-Female Ghostbusters
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Looks like Sony Pictures is on a self-assigned mission of erasing the fact that they once decided to reboot of Ghostbusters franchise with an all-female cast. As per a recent announcement, the production house is releasing the Ghostbusters Ultimate Gift Set, while casually ignoring what it means to be “ultimate” as it has simply chosen to not include Ghostbusters: Answer the Call. And obviously, the 2016 film’s director Paul Feig is not okay with Sony blatantly ignoring his creation.
Sony will be releasing a Ghostbusters Ultimate Gift Set in February 2022 made of eight discs and other items. It will include two discs each of the first two Ghostbusters films- Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989) along with Jason Reitman’s 2021 Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The set also includes two unknown discs wrapped in cover-arts of the Neutrona Wand and Proton Pack as well as the book Making of Ghostbusters, which covers the creative procedure that took place while making the first film in the franchise.
The glaring omission from the otherwise coveted gift set is 2016’s Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, which rebooted the franchise with an all-female cast of Ghostbusters. The film’s absence from the set has been noticed by many, including its director Paul Feig who took to Twitter to call out Sony on the unjustified exclusion. In his post, Feig pointed out that his film too has a lot of fans and it even won the Best Feature Film title at the Kid’s Choice Awards in 2017. Check out his tweet below:
Even five years after its release, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call remains a topic of debate. Initially, Sony planned on creating Ghostbusters III, a direct sequel to the 1989 film but Bill Murray kept refusing the offer to reprise his role. Thus the company took the decision to reboot the series with a talented cast of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones starring as the titular ghost hunting team.
But long before its release, the Ghostbusters reboot received such severe backlash from many fans of the franchise that despite getting majorly positive critics reviews, that praised its comedic elements and cast performances, it ended up being a box office disappointment. It barely managed to earn over $200 million, which was pretty low considering the cost involved in its making and promotion.
Before the reboot was released in theaters, director Paul Feig had shared his plans of directing a sequel to the film as well. But given the backlash it received, Sony Pictures quickly stashed away its plans of making a follow-up to the film. Instead, he handed over the reins to Jason Reitman, son of Ivan Reitman who directed the first two films, who was brought on board to direct Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
Even though it majorly tanked at the box office, the Ghostbusters reboot is still a favorite of many and is considered to be the victim of toxic fans of the franchise. In fact, weeks before the film even hit theaters or was screened for a select audience, it already had a low user score on its IMDb page thanks to countless voters who spammed the film with ratings of 1/10. But no matter what made the film a failure at the box office or how many people liked/disliked the film, nothing justifies its exclusion from a gift box-set that has been labeled as the “Ultimate Collection.”
