You'know with the....well outright hate for this (seriously I never seen such utter almost blind hate for a revamped/brought back franchise as this,not even Star Wars and the prequels and that is saying something) I wonder if this is gonna sink Feig like the Hindenburg.
It might sink Ghostbusters until all parties involved in the original are dead and gone too,shame but I could see that happening now.
To be honest, I doubt it. The film would have to be a massive flop in terms of critical response and box office numbers, beyond just a mere "disappointment." It doesn't have to be a runaway hit for Feig to be safe. It can be a disappointment for the studio or a "moderate success" (which, these days, is the same thing, I think), and Feig will come out fine.
You've got to figure that a studio head isn't really concerned with the
quality of the film, but rather with the box office results. One "bump in the road" film in a string of otherwise very successful films won't derail his career. Plus, Feig has an ace up his sleeve: he does comedy with -- and markets to -- women. That's a demographic that can still be developed, so even if this particular film doesn't take off, he's still one of the go-to guys to court that demographic bloc. That will continue to make him appealing to studio execs for a while.
I'd say a more illustrative example is the Farrelly Bros. These guys were the kings of comedy for a period of time in the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s. They had Dumb & Dumber, Kingpin, and There's Something About Mary, all in a row. They did Me, Myself, & Irene, and then Osmosis Jones, which is -- I think -- the first "bump in the road" that they hit as directors. But Shallow Hal followed it, and it did pretty well at the box office, even if critics didn't like it much.
I think it wasn't really until Stuck on You that you really began to see the decline. That film, apparently, only made around $15 mil beyond its budget, which was a serious drop from how they'd been performing and which I think may not include marketing costs. It was followed by Fever Pitch, which got some REALLY bad press because they filmed during the Red Sox '04 victory, and ended up only doing moderately at the box office. That one also only made about $20mil above budget. The Heartbreak Kid came out in '07, and was a remake. It did better than their previous films (grossing double its budget), but it got negative reviews. That's actually a trend that you start to see after Fever Pitch -- far more negative reviews and moderate successes.
And yet, while these guys have clearly been eclipsed at the box office, they're still making movies and they still have careers.
My point here is that Feig's career won't end if Ghostbusters doesn't do well. Unless it's a HUGE flop and gets massive negative criticism, I think he'll likely even stay in the top tier for comedy directors. He'd need more than one major flop to really bring him down.
