Has Director Paul Feig Abandoned His All-Female ‘Ghostbusters’?

Is director Paul Feig’s all-female cast reboot of Ghostbusters dead in the water? Feig recently admitted at a SXSW Festival event that he thought about killing the project after the amount of backlash he received on the Internet. Paul said he received positive feedback when the Ghostbusters announcement was first made, but soon afterward, hateful messages started pouring in through social media, especially Twitter.

At SXSW to promote his new comedy Spy, starring Melissa McCarthy, who’s also been cast in his Ghostbusters film, Feig told Yahoo he began wondering whether he should move forward with Ghostbusters or not.

“In the weeks after the announcement about the movie, I was so inundated with hate, that I almost went, ‘Maybe I should just not do this, maybe this is a bad idea.’

The people that reach out to you most vociferously are the haters. This is the downside of the internet: Let’s say you get bombarded by, like, 500 people. Your Twitter feed is going to explode and you’re like, ‘F***, the whole world’s against me.’ But then you go, ‘Wait, that’s 500 people.’ And you think about that in context of how many people there are.”

Paul Feig began his career as the creator of the TV show Freaks and Geeks, lasting one season. Feig then went on to write and direct the films Bridesmaids and The Heat. In January, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon were announced as the cast for Paul’s Ghostbusters reboot.

Feig told Variety in an interview he has a love-hate relationship with the Internet. Paul said the first wave after his Ghostbusters announcement was “overwhelmingly positive” but with the second wave came “some of the most misogynistic s*** I’ve ever seen in my life.” Feig went on to say many of the hateful messages about Ghostbusters have come at him on Twitter. When Paul decided to look up some of the haters’ profiles, he was shocked at what he found.

“I figure it’s some wacked-out teenager. But almost constantly it’s someone who’s bio says ‘Proud father of two!’ And has some high-end job. You’re raising children and yet you’re bashing me about putting women in my movie?”

Sony just released news of their own this past week–they’re planning a new Ghostbusters movie as well, but theirs will be all-male. Channing Tatum is rumored to be cast for the flick.

Feig said he believes Sony chose an “interesting time to announce it.”

While Sony’s news of their version of Ghostbusters has caught a lot of heat on social media, Feig thinks his has drawn more hatred.

The good news for those looking forward to Paul Feig’s version of Ghostbusters is that while he considered dropping the project, he hasn’t done so.

Are you looking forward to Paul Feig’s reboot of Ghostbusters over Sony’s reboot?

[Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]