Paul Feig defends Amazon Prime’s ‘Jackpot’ from critics

“Jackpot” director Paul Feig hit back at those who criticize his Amazon Prime movie for purportedly lacking meaning in its premise.

Speaking on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s “Dinner’s on Me” podcast on Tuesday, Feig noted that while “Jackpot” — which stars Simu Liu, Awkwafina and John Cena — has been Amazon Prime’s “No. 1 movie worldwide … for four weeks in a row now,” critics still “excoriated” it and “took the biggest dump” on it.

“All I can figure, from the reviews I read, I think they were trying to find a lot of meaning in this premise,” he added. Explaining that the only reason he did the controversial premise was because “it’s a Jackie Chan movie,” Feig said the plot serves as “a launchpad for a very funny person to be completely in danger and not know what’s going on.” He then hit back at critics, saying, “Don’t get mad at me because I didn’t do some polemic on the state of America today. I don’t want to do that. I’m a comedy guy.”