Bill Murray has been famously reluctant to make a full-fledged gig out of the newer Ghostbusters projects. It’s really hard to blame him for wanting to move on from the 1980s-born franchise, especially after the sequel where the Statue of Liberty did a magical walk. He did (after a months-long deliberation period) agree to cameo in Paul Feig’s 2016 all-female reboot, but as far as signing on for a main role goes? Nope, Murray wasn’t going there, but now that Jason Reitman’s following in the footsteps of his father, Ivan, with a secretive reboot for summer 2020, the indisputable legend has changed his tune.
Murray sat down with IndieWire at Cannes to promote Jim Jarmusch’s zombie movie, The Dead Don’t Die, and of course, Ghostbusters came up. And Murray, surprisingly, said he’d appear in Reitman’s movie if asked. He continued:
“This franchise paid for my son’s college. We made this thing. We are the caretakers of it. It’s a great thing and it was a really fun movie to make. It’s a real movie with some really funny stuff in it … They’re wonderful people. Danny [Ackroyd], Ernie [Hudson], Harold [Ramis], Rick Moranis, Annie Potts — they’re some of the coolest people and they had real careers. They treat people well. They really understand what it is to be a movie actor. It’s a complete collaboration.”
Murray added those last sentences to stress that he feels more of a personal connection to those actors than he does to Sony, but that doesn’t appear to have changed his feelings for hopping into the Reitman 2.0 project (the one that will pretend that the all-lady reboot did not happen). While some might grouse about Murray mentioning a paycheck in his answer, that can also be interpreted as gratitude toward the franchise and his fellow actors and so on.
So, it looks like Ernie Hudson, who played Winston Zeddemore, wasn’t wrong when he said that the still-living original main cast would circle back for a reunion if the opportunity presented itself. God only knows that Dan Aykroyd must be thrilled to hear Murray’s words, which he said while promoting his umpteenth Jarmusch movie. Reitman’s movie will arrive on July 10, 2020 (the same day as the fifth The Purge movie), so if he wants to get Murray bustin’ again, he’d better make it happen soon.
(Via IndieWire)
