In a new interview with ComicBookMovie.com‘s Josh Wilding, Ernie Hudson, who’s been on a media blitz promoting his new film Prisoner’s Daughter, not only discussed Ghostbusters: Afterlife‘s emotional finale but also Bill Murray’s return in the upcoming sequel.
In talking about Afterlife, Hudson would touch on the recurring rumor of a Ghostbusters 3, with the franchise eventually receiving a female-led reboot in 2016 by Bridesmaids director Paul Feig.
“Yeah, there had been so much talk over the 30 years or so that it was going to happen or not going to happen. I just thought that whenever it happened, it would be great. They came up with the women’s version, which is like, ‘Eh, that’s nice, but…'”
With the reboot considered a commercial failure, Sony Pictures would then focus entirely on the franchise’s prime canon, enlisting Jason Reitman to write and direct, being joined by co-writer Gil Kenan, and even bringing back the majority of the original film’s surviving cast, including the elusive Bill Murray, who in a 2010 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman would call rumors, talk, and the potential existence of a Ghostbusters 3 his “nightmare.”
“When Jason called about the last one, Afterlife, it was great when I got on the set and seeing Bill (Murray). We met again in that fight sequence when we’re all in our jumpsuits, and you flashback to that time of making the first one, and it was all a new experience in New York, not just meeting these guys but seeing their insanity up close and personal. It was fun, and it still is fun. I love them dearly, I really do.”
With another sequel set to arrive in theaters this December, original Ghostbusters star Bill Murray will again be back, with Murray said to be “enthusiastic” about the film, according to Hudson.
“I’m very happy to be a part of that franchise, I love it, and I think the fans will like the new one as well. You know, there’s a lot going on, and I was really happy to see Bill not just be back in it but be really enthusiastic about it and Danny (Aykroyd) and Annie (Potts), it was fun. We finished it up, and we’ll wait to see what it all kind of comes together and looks like.”
In Afterlife, the character of Winston Zeddemore was said to have gone into finance, coining a fortune, with this financial backing allowing for the Ghostbusters‘ return to New York City in the upcoming sequel, and Hudson, he feels that this change has finally given Winston “a purpose and a place.”
“Winston, I think, having his big Corporation, having the money to fund some things, it certainly gives him a purpose and a place to be, and that was always a problem, I think with the first two is like you’re there but where’s my place here, kind of. To me, it was obvious, but some of the reaction, you kind of go, ‘So, Winston is there.'”
Slated to arrive in theaters on December 20th, 2023, in addition to franchise originals Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Annie Potts, the untitled Ghostbusters sequel will also include the returning cast of Afterlife, Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Logan Kim, and Celeste O’Connor, and new additions Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, James Acaster, and Emily Alyn Lind.
