NEW GHOSTBUSTERS
HUNGRY TO PROVE THE INTERNET HATERS WRONG
There are Internet LOS ANGELES doubters, even haters, who don’t think the new Ghostbusters can roll with an all-female cast — even with four of the funniest women in comedy battling the specters.
To these vocal few, Melissa McCarthy has one word: Hummus.
“This is all a lot like Leslie, prehummus,” says McCarthy, looking at fellow Ghostbusters Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon as they sit comically stacked sideby-side on a sofa in a Four Seasons Hotel suite. “Leslie had a violent fuss about hummus. She didn’t like us eating it. I told her to try it before you critique it, for the love of God.”
“Melissa grabbed my face and shoved it in my mouth,” Jones says. “And I ate a whole tub.”
To clarify, there was no hummus force-feeding on the set of the Paul Feig-directed reboot. But Jones sampled hummus and now obsesses about the glories of the chickpea delight, which serves as an apt and delicious Ghostbusters metaphor before the movie arrives in theaters Friday. Try it. You could just love it. “So stick this movie on a pita and munch away,” McKinnon adds, nailing the landing. “See what you think.”
After months of online posturing over the parts originally brought to life by four funnymen in the 1984 classic — Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson — moviegoers will have the chance to decide for themselves about the new chapter. That’s clearly a relief to the cast of the remake. (Fourth team member Kristen Wiig, who was sick, missed the group talk.)
“I have been waiting for this in the best way. It’s like, ‘Let’s get this out there,’ ” McCarthy says. “That’s the feeling you pray to have at the end of a movie: You cannot wait for people to see this.”
“But save the critique until after you’ve seen it,” she adds.
The cast insists that none of the Internet noise ever invaded their funny time on the set, which involved extensive ad-libbed scenes with Feig and the unfettered joy of strapping on the famed proton pack for the first time. (“When you put that gear on, it definitely puts a little swagger into your step,” McCarthy says.)
But it turns out the props were truly heavy.
“You know those montages in movies when they are gearing up to save everything?” McKinnon says. “Well, it was like that every day. Only there was groaning involved. Universal groaning.”
They display the gear and the jokes well enough. Aggregate site RottenTomatoes.com shows 78% of the movie’s reviews are positive, and The New York Times review trumpets, “Girls rule, women are funny, get over it.”
But now isn’t the best time to ask whether these Ghostbusters will ride again. Some of this movie’s burdens are still too raw.
“It’s like talking about having a second baby while you’re still delivering the first. It’s like, let’s just get this one out,” McCarthy says as her fellow Ghostbusters break into surprised laughter.
“Is that too much, too visual?” she asks. “But with this group of ladies, it would sure be fun.”