Dan Aykroyd Slams Director Paul Feig

By Reggie's Take on June 5, 2017

An original Ghostbusters actor from the 1984 film made his feelings known on British television as to what his true feelings really are when it comes to the director of the 2016 reboot.

Dan Aykroyd who was one of the main stars and co-writer of the original 1984 Ghostbusters film told a British television station that Paul Feig, who directed the 2016 reboot made several decisions that were the cause of the movie loosing money. Mr. Aykroyd made it clear that the movies struggles had nothing to do with the ensemble cast or their performances.

“The girls are great in it. Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig – what wonderful, wonderful players they are – and Leslie Jones, I was really happy with the movie, but it cost too much. And Sony does not like to lose money, they don’t. It made a lot of money around the world but just cost too much, making it economically not feasible to do another one. So that’s too bad.”

“The director, he spent too much on it, he didn’t shoot scenes we suggested to him and several scenes that were going to be needed and he said ‘Nah, we don’t need them.’ Then we tested the movie and they needed them and he had to go back. About $30 to $40 million in reshoots. So he will not be back on the Sony lot any time soon.”

The movie, reportedly cost Sony more than $140 million to make, but only grossed $229.1 million worldwide. After Aykroyd’s appearance aired on Sunday, Sony has since refuted his version of events sating that the actual cost of the reshoots were actually between $3 million and $4 million and not the amount Aykroyd gave.

Reggie’s Take:
The 2016 version of Ghostbusters was a good movie for what it was. Could it of been even better? Of course it could have.

My issue with the 2016 rebooted version was it tried to hard to please the fans by having so many nods to the original film instead of trying to stand on its own two feet.

The Paul Feig movie showed glimpses of what could have been a fun movie, but every time it tried to they gave you another nod to the 1984 film. Don’t get me wrong I actually got a kick from seeing all the nods and cameos from the original cast, but at the same time it made me wish I were seeing Ghostbusters 3 instead of something different.

I never had a problem with the rebooted version having an all female cast. I personally felt that was a good move with trying to separate them selves from the 84′ movie. For those of you out there who hated that idea all I can say is grow up.

The biggest change I would of made to the movie would of been to connect it to the two previous films that came before it and showed the four women who starred in the movie convincing the original team that they can finally make this work with a little help from them. This could of been a passing of the torch in a way if the movie had done well and given everyone a chance to see some favorite characters one more time.