Who you gonna maul? Why Paul Feig’s derided all-female Ghostbusters dazzles a decade later

Ten years ago, the Ghostbusters reboot was released into a firestorm of rage and revulsion. What did the onslaught show us about film, fandom – and does it stand up today?

C riticism of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot began more than two years before its release. Specifically, it started the moment that the director of Bridesmaids and The Heat announced, in 2014, that he and writer Katie Dippold were to cast four women as paranormal exterminators. The fate of their film was all but sealed.

A year later, the first trailer for the film swiftly became the most disliked film trailer on YouTube – and then most disliked YouTube video ever . Such a concerted campaign of vitriol did not lessen with the film’s release.

It was in many ways the cinematic sensation of the year: a firestorm of rage and revulsion, all over a family supernatural comedy that Sony launched into a landscape already drowning in profitable franchises.

The film came and went. The cast moved on, and while the backlash remained a touchstone – in 2018, Sandra Bullock called it “unfair on a level that I can’t even not be mad about talking about” – the fury was redirected towards the likes of Daisy Ridley and Kelly Marie Tran in The Last Jedi , and then Brie Larson for Captain Marvel .

The precedent had been set, and online male superfans were free to lead the discourse over what was acceptable for women to achieve in their favourite fantasy sandbox. The ebb and flow of this anger mostly manifested itself through rage-baiting YouTube videos. Feig’s Ghostbusters became the bloodiest casualty of the IP wars of the 2010s.

The film’s legacy to date has been forged in this hatred. But 10 years on, I find myself – as a self-confessed Ghostbusters superfan – revisiting it more and more, not as a grim war artefact but simply as a piece of art. Its upbeat vibe is something lacking from a lot of modern blockbuster fodder. Its warmth and inclusivity means you seek out the company of the characters again and again. Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and especially Kate McKinnon (whose Bugs Bunnyesque mad scientist adds a nitro boost to every scene she’s able to steal) all seem to be thoroughly enjoying their time together, and the bond they form over the course of the adventure feels real and earned.

That makes it very distinct from the brittle, brilliant original, much as I loved it. Ivan Reitman ’s 1984 film was absorbed early into my DNA, and became a creative compass for me growing up. While I thought the 1989 sequel was a bit of a damp squib, I too was canonically sceptical when I first learned of Feig’s plans.