When the first trailer for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters first dropped, we at The A.V. Club found it strangely reminiscent of its namesake. Now that was to be expected (to an extent), what with this being a reboot and all. But criticism (that’s one way to put it) about the project stems mostly from the team being an all-female one, whose fictional proficiency as ghostbusters has already been deemed “childhood-ruining” and subpar. And that backlash has helped the trailer make YouTube history, as it now holds the record for most dislikes for a movie trailer: The number of dislikes is twice as high as the number of likes.
Those poor, angry nerds with the science—er, math—of that record on their side might be surprised to learn that they have something in common with one of the yucky female leads of the film. Melissa McCarthy, who plays Abby Yates in the film, recently admitted that the trailer is “very confusing.” While on The Johnjay & Rich Show, McCarthy said the title cards that refer to the events/film of 30 years ago are at odds with the idea of a reboot—that is, the “new” ghostbusting team is technically the first of its kind. The actress continued:
“It’s a great story but told totally differently. It’s the same thing of four unlikely heroes, it’s in New York city, ghosts are taking over. It’s the same classic story, but it’s not a ‘30 years later’.”
McCarthy’s concerns are somewhat more thoughtful than a knee-jerk reaction to all the woman-identifying players in the film, so those who have already decided that the reboot has created a supermassive black hole of everything that’s wrong in the world probably won’t find it to be in line with their own opposition to the project. But she also joked that “no one cared” what she thought of the trailer (which isn’t even one of the more egregious examples of a misleading promo), a sentiment that probably extends to the reboot’s seemingly clairvoyant detractors.
