Sony Is Trying To Shut Down ‘Ghostbusters’ Hate By Sidestepping Where Haters Dwell

It’s no secret that certain quarters of the internet hate the upcoming Ghostbusters. It has the most disliked trailer of all time on YouTube. Patton Oswalt is currently dealing with people telling him they’re glad his wife died on Twitter because he bothered to defend a trailer. Nobody, however, is more aware of this than Sony’s marketing team.

The Hollywood Reporter has a pretty fascinating breakdown both of the trolling and Sony’s reaction to it. Really, we can sum it up in one quote:

The first trailer got 70 million views. The number of people talking: less than 100,000, and they are trying to define the experience.

To be fair, even the cast thought the first trailer could have used some work. Beyond that, though, Sony found the best way to deal with the haters was to simply to avoid YouTube. The second trailer, released to U.S. audiences, seems to have remained a Facebook exclusive. We know, the idea that YouTube might be a cesspool is absolutely shocking, but there it is, nonetheless. And the fact is, it works: The trailer enjoys a far more positive response. Meanwhile, over on YouTube, they debuted the international trailer, and the Dislike Brigade is back.

In the end, the fragile feelings of internet trolls don’t matter all that much to studio bottom lines. There’s not much difference between the whining over the Ghostbusters trailer and bellyaching about Rey being some sort of magical pixie dream Jedi, or the tears that flowed onto keyboards that Johnny Storm was no longer a blue-eyed blond. In both cases, they had no real effect on the box office gross.

Really, why would it? Lost amidst all the railing is that most audiences aren’t bothered at all by reboots or the ideas behind them, but make decisions purely based on whether or not they liked the trailer. Getting angry over a movie trailer says more about the person flipping out than the movie, and don’t really reflect how viewers at large will react. We’ll see what they have to say in July.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

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