Original flavor Ghostbuster Dan Akyroyd is the envy of a lot of us right now. He's seen a test screening of Paul Feig's Ghostbusters starring Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, and Kristen Wiig and he was brave enough to take to social media to give his opinion on it. Wanna bet how some fans reacted?
The actor had previously given his enthusiastic blessing to the new crew saying “The Aykroyd family is delighted by this inheritance of the Ghostbusters torch by these most magnificent women in comedy. My great grandfather, Dr. Sam Aykroyd, the original Ghostbuster, was a man who empowered women in his day, and this is a beautiful development in the legacy of our family business.”
Not too long after, and because he knew there were plenty of fans clamoring for more from him and the original team, he revealed there was still room for another version. “There”s three drafts of the old concept that exists. And we”re going to be able to salvage some of it and use it. Yeah, we”re gonna be able to use it some day,” he said. “Let”s get this one made and that will reinvigorate the franchise and then we”ll go on to maybe doing a more conventional third sequel as we were planning and another idea I have for it.”
Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen (the original film will be returning to theaters if you want to celebrate your fandom) but we need to let Feig's Ghostbusters be released first and Akyroyd, who also recently worked with Melissa McCarthy on Tammy, took to Twitter/WhoSay to let his fans know he's seen the film. And he loved it.
“As originator of the original: Saw test screening of new movie. Apart from brilliant, genuine performances from … https://t.co/Z9pcg9ehDF
– Dan Aykroyd (@dan_aykroyd) May 30, 2016
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Here's his full statement:
“As originator of the original: Saw test screening of new movie. Apart from brilliant, genuine performances from the cast both female and male, it has more laughs and more scares than the first 2 films plus Bill Murray is in it! As one of millions of man-fans and Ray Stantz, I'm paying to see that and bringing all my friends!”
A rousing review if ever I heard one. Of course Akyroyd doesn't review films for a living, nor does he often share his opinions on recent movie releases so there's no way to tell if your own opinion of Ghostbusters will line up with his. But that doesn't matter to some fans.
The first reply on the actor's tweet was, “I'm sorry Dan, as much as I love you, and the original 2 films, I just cannot bring myself to watch this reboot.”
Ok, fair enough. I'm sure Mr. Aykroyd couldn't care less but things quickly devolved from there.
“May I respectfully say: Royalties Whore!” shouted one fan. “I'd rather eat shit.x,” said another charmer. Good thing no one is making them see this movie. “They raped your baby and you're thanking them,” wrote someone I hope gets their internet privileges taken away by their mother.
And then came the conspiracy theorists:
Fan #1: “I'm just worried people where strong armed into saying good things about the movie to help sony make more money,” they wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and “Why are we suddenly getting all kinds of new ghostbusters stuff after such a long wait? Just saying something isn't right here”
Fan #2: “how much are they paying you to endorse this horrible movie @dan_aykroyd ?”
Fan #3: “how do we know you aren't just saying what you're contractually obligated to say? Heard they they threatened to sue you and the other original cast members if you guys didn't cameo.”
But not everyone was so negative, plenty of fans shared their enthusiastic support and some even suggested they might wait until they see the movie before commenting on its quality: “Some morons in these comments! I will form an opinion after I have seen the film, not before like some entitled idiots!!”
And perhaps most importantly one replied to an individual's opinion by saying “Well, I'm glad you like it, Mr Stantz.”