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There's been lots of speculation about a sequel. Why hasn't it happened?

I know Kristen has always been very reticent to want to do it, and I've never pushed it either. It seems easy to do a sequel to this, because you would just have a crazy wedding. But, again, the reason this movie worked in the first place is it's this one woman's journey through this crisis and healing herself. That's what makes you invest in the film and pulls you along. To do a sequel, you can't suddenly [have] her character going through another crisis and she's got to solve it again but, look, never say never.

You've directed so many amazing movies with a mostly female cast -- \"Bridesmaids,\" \"The Heat,\" \"Spy,\" \"A Simple Favor\" and 2016's \"Ghostbusters.\" What specifically draws you to those projects?

I just love stories about women and women's friendships. It's something I never really saw portrayed that much onscreen. From time to time it was, but not that much.

Also, I have known so many funny women over the course of my life -- most of my friends growing up were girls and I just always felt more comfortable around women, just because I had so many bullies and all that kind of thing. I'd always run over to the ladies. I love the sense of humor. I love the camaraderie. A bunch of guys get together, it gets a little aggressive sometimes. I don't like that; it's not my thing. I just want to tell these stories because I'm fascinated by them and I love working with talented women.

\"PHOTO:
Lars Niki/Getty Images, FILE
PHOTO: Paul Feig attends the 2020 Athena Film Festival awards ceremony at The Diana Center at Barnard College, Feb. 26, 2020, in New York City.
>

\"Bridesmaids\" and the \"Ghostbusters\" reboot were treated so differently. Why do you think films about and starring women have a tendency of being treated harsher than ones about and starring men, and how is that changing?

It's the evidence of the problem of how women have not gotten the same fair shake in entertainment that men have. If you go back to the movies in the '30s and the '40s, there were so many female stars, and the roles they were playing were so equal to the men. It was really kind of a meeting of the minds in those old screwball comedies and beyond.

Then, once we get into the blockbuster mentality, where movies were a little more aimed at 15-year-old boys -- it seemed to always be the demographic you always heard about in Hollywood -- we started getting portrayals of women from a 15-year-old boy's perspective, which is either as my mom who's mean to me and doesn't let me do what I want or it's the girl I'm in love with, who I'm afraid to talk to. It just kind of created this real one-dimensionality to women's portrayals.

Then, the only movies women were getting, that they were allowed to really be the stars of, where these romantic comedies or these romances, which then seemed to be aimed so heavily at an all-female audience. Then you got this term I can't stand, personally, which is a \"chick flick.\" It became this thing for guys to go, like, \"Oh, there's women in that movie, so that's a chick flick.\" Then it's just something to be written off of not being a \"real movie,\" and that just sort of self-perpetuated to the point where any movie starring a woman was looked at that way.

Fortunately, now we're getting better portrayals onscreen -- even looking at Charlize Theron in \"Mad Max\" (2015's \"Fury Road\") and that kind of thing, these kick-ass characters. It just needs to open up so there's all this just three-dimensional portrayals of women that are just realistic and they don't have to be strong female characters. They can be imperfect, flawed characters the same way that men get to play for decades and decades and decades.

Editor's note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. This was originally published on Sept. 24, 2020.

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