Ten years ago, when Sony Pictures was looking for a crack comedic filmmaker to kickstart the long-dormant Ghostbusters film franchise, Paul Feig proved brave enough to answer the call. And the Emmy-winning writer-director behind beloved TV shows like Freaks and Geeks and such cinematic blockbusters as Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy would do it all over again… even if the fallout nearly busted his Hollywood career.
“I don’t regret it, and I’m very proud of it,” Feig said of his Ghostbusters — which also goes by the title Ghostbusters: Answer the Call — during a recent appearance at the 2026 Nantucket Film Festival, where he received the Visionary Storyteller Tribute award. “But it definitely caused me more trouble than I needed.”
The source of that trouble stemmed from the fact that Feig had opted to reboot, rather than continue, the Ghostbusters series with an all-female cast of paranormal hunters led by his dynamic Bridesmaids duo of Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy — who scored a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the 2010 comedy — alongside Saturday Night Live scene stealers Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. Internet trolls were deeply unhappy with that choice, and made their voices heard online in the run-up to the movie’s July 15 release, repeatedly “disliking” the trailer on YouTube and review bombing the film on IMDb sight unseen.
Even then-presidential candidate Donald Trump got into the act, posting a video deriding the movie as he pursued the Oval Office opposite his Democratic opponent, Hilary Clinton, who was also the subject of misogynistic attacks on the campaign trail. “It was the worst time to put the movie out,” Feig said in retrospect. “It somehow unnecessarily became a political statement to see that movie, and most audiences were like, ‘I want to see a comedy and have some fun.'”
Speaking exclusively with Gold Derby after his Nantucket event, the filmmaker stresses that that vocal minority didn’t speak for all Ghostbusters fans. “The hardcore Ghostheads loved the movie,” he says. “They were so supportive, and are just wonderful people — they raise money for kids and visit kids’ hospitals in costumes and things like that. This was a secondary group of guys who were they type that would come up to you and your nerdy friends while you were all reading comic books and say, ‘Hey, what’s that? This is cool — it’s mine now.’ It’s the group who are guarding the manosphere or whatever.
“I always say that my tombstone’s going to read, ‘Thanks for ruining my childhood,'” Feig adds with a wry laugh. “That’s all I heard for years out of these guys.”
Interestingly, Feig did have the option of taking an easier route to a Ghostbusters relaunch. In the wake of Spy, he was originally approached by OG Ghostbusters helmer, the late Ivan Reitman, who offered him the chance to oversee a direct sequel to the first two movies. “I turned it down, because I didn’t like the script,” Feig told the Nantucket audience candidly.
But then-Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal was eager to get him in the director’s chair, and gave him and co-writer Katie Dippold the OK to reimagine the franchise instead of following a previously-trodden path. “Amy was all over me to do the film, and I was like, ‘It seems like sacred ground for comedy,'” Feig recalled. “But if I could reboot it and work with all these funny woman, it seemed like a way to distance myself from the first one and not ruin that legacy. Little did I know it would set off this lightning rod.”
In his Gold Derby chat, Feig acknowledges that one miscalculation may have been trying to placate the entire Ghostbusters fanbase by including cameos from almost the entire main cast of the previous two films, including Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Sigourney Weaver. (Harold Ramis died in 2014, but appears via a memorial bust in the background of one shot)
“When Katie and I first came up with the idea, we were really going to stay separate from the earlier movies,” he confesses. “But as we talked about the film, we would say, ‘It would be really sad if we didn’t have the Ectomobile or Slimer.’ If I had a way to do it over again, I might have pulled back on the fan service a little bit more. Something that we thought was doing to be a great thing for the people who love those movies instead became an irritant for some of them.
“But during our test screenings, every time one of the original Ghostbusters came onscreen, the audience would cheer,” adds Feig, who has often credited the test screening process with helping him shape his comedies for maximum commercial impact. “They even cheered when we showed that bust of Harold!”
While Feig says that indulging in “fan service” may have been a mistake on his part, he also believes that the media crossed the streams for Ghostbusters by breathlessly reporting on the internet controversy as if it represented the entire audience. “My biggest pet peeve about the media is that they’ll look at a few bad comments online and go, ‘The internet’s in an uproar,” the directors notes. “And if it was a million people, that’s an uproar! But this was maybe a quarter of that; anytime you get slavish to what the internet say, you have to remember that you’re being slavish to a few thousand people.”
For the record, Feig wasn’t the only filmmaker at the center of a internet fandom firestorm in 2016. Five months after Ghostbusters arrived in theaters, Rian Johnson unveiled Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the seventh, and still the most divisive, installment in the Skywalker Saga that George Lucas launched in 1977. That movie was also pilloried by a vocal segment of fandom displeased with Johnson’s creative choices, including the addition of a diverse ensemble of female characters.
Taken together, the two movies had a pronounced chilling effect on the way studios approached legacy franchises for the next decade. It’s no accident that The Last Jedi and Ghostbusters were followed by The Rise of Skywalker in 2019 and Ghostbusters: Afterlife in 2021, respectively — films that rushed to embrace the past instead of looking to the future. Jones has spoken openly about the harassment she endured from internet trolls, an experience shared by The Last Jedi star Kelly Marie Tran.
“It definitely impacted how Hollywood approached making sequels and casting women,” Feig says now. “But Hollywood only ever reacts to what makes money and what loses money. If you’re looking for altruism out of Hollywood, you’re not going to find it! That’s not really their job, but it should be in terms of hiring and the stories they tell. But I also say that film is a business and if you don’t know how to play the politics and work with the studios … then you’re not going to work.”
Despite the mixed legacy of Ghostbusters — which notably grossed over $200 million worldwide — Feig has worked steadily in the decade since. Last year, he hit the jackpot with The Housemaid, the Sydney Sweeney-Amanda Seyfried thriller that’s officially become the biggest box office hit of his career. (A sequel, The Housemaid’s Secret, starts production in the fall.) And while he hasn’t re-teamed with McCarthy since Ghostbusters, Feig makes it clear that the pair are also open to another collaboration. “We’re in contact all the time,” the filmmakers says. “We’ve been doing our own things, but if the right project comes along, one-hundred percent we’d work together again.”
Meanwhile, Dippold is the mastermind behind the Apple TV streaming sensation, Widow’s Bay, which just earned 19 Emmy nominations for its acclaimed freshman year. Asked whether we might see him direct an episode when the series returns for Season 2, Feig says he’s just a phone call away.
“If they asked, I would happily do it,” he enthuses. “It’s the best show on TV by far, and it’s so Katie. She loves ghost stories and all that stuff, and Kate O’Flynn’s character is Katie. Whenever someone with such a unique voice gets to do that voice perfectly and people connect with it, that’s a huge win.
“I keep writing to her saying, ‘This show is a masterpiece,'” Feig adds with a grin. “I’m sure I’m driving her crazy, so let me tell her here — Katie, I’m sorry to keep bothering you.”
