Paul Feig praises Dan Aykroyd for defending female Ghostbusters reboot

Paul Feig heaped praise on Dan Aykroyd after he defended the director's 2016 Ghostbusters reboot.

The Bridesmaids director helmed a reboot of the supernatural comedy starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon and it was condemned by diehard Ghostbusters fans at the time and still to this day.

Aykroyd, who created the franchise with the late Harold Ramis in 1984, came to the defence of the maligned film over the weekend. In an interview with People, he admitted he was "mad" at the time as a producer due to the budget but he enjoyed the end product.

"I liked the movie Paul Feig made with those spectacular women," he praised. "I thought that the villain at the end was great. I loved so much of it. And of course, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones and Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, you're never going to do better than that.

"So I go on the record as saying I'm so proud to have been able to license that movie and have a hand and have a part in it, and I'm fully supportive of it, and I don't besmirch it at all. I think it works really great amongst all the ones that have been made."

Feig reshared the comedian's comments on X on Sunday and recalled working with him on the 2016 film.

"Dan is the greatest. He's been a comedy hero to me since the very beginning of SNL and a huge influence on my career," he wrote. "I'll never forget my thrill at how excited he was after he watched the final cut of GB... I'll always be grateful to him for letting me join the GB family."

Feig was then forced to deny a fan's claim that Aykroyd and the original cast members - Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts - were threatened with lawsuits to appear in the reboot.

He stated, "Rick Moranis decided not to do it but everyone else was really happy to be there... We all had a lot of fun and laughs on the set."

The original actors have since gone on to appear in 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife and 2024's Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which stars a whole new cast led by Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard and McKenna Grace.