Forsgren: An Open Letter to Paul Feig, Director of Ghostbusters 2016

Paul Feig,

O.k., dude. It’s time to shut your mouth.

For weeks now, you’ve been using seemingly every opportunity to blast fans of the original “Ghostbusters” from 1984. You claim that the nerds are the biggest jerks in the world, that the only way we could not be pants-wettingly excited for your “Ghostbusters” remake is because we’re a bunch angry, misogynistic man babies that just can’t handle the idea of a movie starring four strong female Ghostbusters.

That right there is an interesting marketing strategy. You know, of course, that the main reason you’re getting to remake “Ghostbusters” is because the video game that came out a few years back sold really well. The suits at Sony, the studio that owns “Ghostbusters” and had no real interest previously in more “Ghostbusters” movies, saw this and went, “Wow, this property has a built-in audience. Let’s exploit ‘em for a few million more bucks.” So, attacking a group of fans that you’re depending on for a lot of financial support seems, well, stupid.

To help you trash the “GB” fan base, you’ve enlisted friends like Judd Apatow and Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy has implied that “Ghostbusters” fans are all hateful little trolls and that she hopes we all find a friend. Awww, how considerate. I’ll return that kindness by hoping that McCarthy someday finds the acting chops to play a character other than the bumbling buffoon she plays in, like, everything she’s in. It’s called “range”, Melissa. Maybe you should develop some.

All this back and forth used to fun, but it’s grown tiresome. Besides, this sturm und drang misses the point. And the point is that whatever happens with this movie, whether it’s good or bad, whether it blows up at the box office or sinks faster than the Titanic, you’ll have nobody else to blame but yourselves and the execs at Sony.

You see, every decision that led to the making of this movie was made by either yourself or your handlers at Sony. Those decisions will determine whether “Ghostbusters” sinks or swims. None of those decisions were made by fans. The fans didn’t decide to go into production with a script full of one-dimensional characters and devoid of humor. The fans didn’t decide to take the focus off the characters and the way they react to one another and the supernatural situations and put it on the building of their ghost fighting tech out of scraps of junk. What, is “Ghostbusters” now an episode of “The A-Team”?

And despite your assertion that you are a fan, you don’t have to look too hard at the way you’ve treated the original movie and its creators to tell that you are no fan. A real fan would never fill a “Ghostbusters” flick full of Easter candy-colored ghosts that look like rejects from “Scooby-Doo”. A real fan would never have frozen out original director Ivan Reitman or threatened to sue Bill Murray.

And let’s throw out the notion that your movie is a progressive political statement. If your movie was truly progressive, you might have cast an African-American character as one of the scientists, instead of making the black character a lame, cliched street smart character. If this is your political statement, if this is the hill you want to die on, then you’re going to die in vain.

Look, I hope your “Ghostbusters” remake is good. That would be amazing. But everything we’ve seen so far indicates that it’s going to be a candy-colored dumpster fire. And if it ends up going down the dumpster fire path, that won’t be the fault of the fans, no matter how whiny and misogynistic we are. You are a mature, professional adult. You should be above trying to shovel the blame for your missteps onto innocent parties. You’re not a 5-year-old trying to blame your sibling for breaking Mommy’s favorite vase. You screwed up. Take accountability for that. That is what adulting is all about.