Although director Jason Reitman backtracked on his remarks about the female-led remake, Leslie Jones insists in her memoir that 'the damage was done.'
- September 22, 2023
AceShowbiz - Leslie Jones got death threats over her female-led "Ghostbusters" movie. The 56-year-old actress - who featured in Kevin Feig's movie alongside Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig, and Melissa McCarthy - has blasted Jason Reitman's response to the 2016 film when he released "Ghostbusters, Afterlife" in 2021, as well as the public fallout from it.
"Why are people being so evil to each other? How can you sit and type 'I want to kill you.' Who does that?" she wrote in her new memoir "Leslie F****** Jones".
She continued, "Sad keyboard warriors living in their mother's basements hated the fact that this hallowed work of perfect art now featured - gasp! horror! - women in the lead roles. Worst of all, of course, was that one of the lead characters was a Black woman. For some men, this was the final straw."
When it came to making his movie, Jason - whose father Ivan helmed the original "Ghostbusters" films in the 1980s - insisted he was "trying to go back to the original technique and hand the movie back to the fans."
The "Juno" director added at the time, "I'm not making the 'Juno' of 'Ghostbusters' movies. This is gonna be a love letter to 'Ghostbusters'... I want to make a movie for my fellow 'Ghostbusters' fans."
He later claimed on Twitter that his comments "came out wrong" and he hailed the all-female version as "amazing," but Leslie insisted "the damage was done." In her memoir, she insisted that his original comments were "a pretty clear shout-out" to the people who were attacking her.
She wrote, "Bringing up the idea of giving the movie 'back to the fans' was a pretty clear shout-out to all those losers who went after us for making an all-female [movie]."
