Over thirty years ago, audiences flocked to "Ghostbusters" and three decades later, it’s not only still beloved, but will be relaunched next year with with Paul Feig‘s female-led variation, with plenty more franchise pictures in the works (including a recently announced animated movie). However, as we’ve learned from the movies thus far, the ghosts of the past don’t stay buried, and a handful of tibits about the original movies and planned sequels that were never to be have emerged.
First up, Cinema Blend have dug up a rare deleted scene (watch below) from the original "Ghostbusters," featuring Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, but not as Dr. Peter Venkman and Dr. Raymond Stantz. Instead, Ivan Reitman describes their roles as "Shakespearean fools or gravediggers” who provided "absurd commentary" throughout the movie. However, the director wound up cutting the sequences because he thought it might be confusing for audiences to see the actors in dual roles.
Speaking of things being cut, Ernie Hudson has long complained that his role as Winston Zeddmore wound up being sliced and diced in the editing room, but Reitman disputes that notion.
“[Winston] got expanded; it ended up to be bigger than it was written,” he told EW. “I’ve spoken to him about it since, because I saw it in the press, that somehow we had reduced the part, which is absolutely not true. It was quite the opposite. We kept borrowing from stuff the other guys had and giving it to him, because he was very good, and it balanced the film amongst all the Ghostbusters. We didn’t take a single scene out. In fact, we added a lot to his part. The stuff in the jail and in the mayor’s office — I don’t even recall that it in the initial shooting draft. I told him all that, and then he apologized.”
Hudson has since lined up a role along with pretty much all the original "Ghostbusters" players in Feig’s upcoming movie, but in the year’s after "Ghostbusters II," many sequel ideas were tossed around, including one called "Hell Bent," which would’ve found the team caught in a literal hell on Earth, as Manhattan gets swallowed up by some seriously evil stuff. And according to EW, Aykroyd "still holds out hope" to revive the story, but with a younger cast.
We’ll see what happens, but for now, all eyes are on Feig’s picture coming next summer, which has faced a lot of scrutiny from the less evolved corners of the web, with some complaining about women taking center stage in the movie. And star Kirsten Wiig says she was disheartened to hear that chatter.
"…the fact there was so much controversy because we were women was surprising to me. Some people said some really not nice things about the fact that there were women. It didn’t make me mad, it just really bummed me out. We’re really honoring those movies," she told the LA Times.
"Ghostbusters" returns on July 15, 2016.