During a panel discussion Saturday at the PGA's annual Produced By Conference, Ghostbusters director Paul Feig addressed the insane amount of backlash the film has received.
The reboot — starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones — has gotten a slightly gross amount of criticism from very vocal online detractors. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Feig didn't shy away from talking about it, saying, "We still get called, in the press, a 'chick flick.' We are never not referred to as the ‘all-female Ghostbusters,’ which makes me crazy.”
"It was my idea to do it all-female," Feig explained to the conference, "I wanted to do an origin story and I thought the best way to do it was by doing it with the funniest women I know."
Panelist Octavia Spencer added she was also blown away by the backlash. "The fact that there are people who take any type of umbrage with [the movie] is mind-boggling to me," she said.
"I have been hit with some of the worst misogynistic stuff," continued Feig, who apparently isn't familiar with the internet or Twitter. "I used to [hear] that people had haters and I was, like, 'How does that happen?'”
This summer, we're celebrating the biggest movie season of the year with a new series called Blockbust-HER. We'll be looking at everything film-related from the female perspective, interviewing major players in the industry and discussing where Hollywood is doing right by women and where (all too often) it is failing them. And now...let's go to the movies!
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