Bill Murray Talks Ghostbusters: Afterlife

It honestly feels like we've been waiting forever for Ghostbusters: Afterlife after the film has been delayed by over a year due to Corona Virus. But the end is in sight and the film looks firmly set on its November 12th 2021 (Nov 11th in the US) release date. The film makers and cast behind the return of The Ghostbusters have been pretty tight lipped on what we can expect from the film, but Murray has offered us some insight into the upcoming film.

Speaking to Collider, the veteran comedy actor described Jason Reitman coming to him with "the feel of the first one, more than the second one or the girls’ one."

"Ivan’s son, Jason, did one. I remember him calling me and saying, “I’ve got an idea for another Ghostbusters. I’ve had this idea for years.” I thought, “What the heck could that possibly be?” I remember him when he was a kid. I remember his Bar Mitzvah. I was like, “What the heck? What does this kid know?” But he had a really, really wonderful idea that he wrote with another wonderful guy that I got to work with, Gil Kenan, who made City of Ember. The two of them wrote a Ghostbusters movie that really brings it back to life. It really has the feel of the first one, more than the second one or the girls’ one. It has a different feel than two out of four.

I think he’s really got something. It was hard. It was really hard. That’s why I think it’s gonna be good. We were just in it for a little while, but it was physically painful. Wearing those packs is extremely uncomfortable. We had batteries the size of batteries. They now have batteries the size of earrings. It’s still a really heavy thing to wear, all the time. The special effects in this one are a lot of wind and dirt in your face, and there was a lot of going down and getting back up. I was like, “What is this? What am I doing? These are like Bulgarian deadlifts, or a Russian kettlebell, getting up and down with this thing on my back.” It was very uncomfortable. Usually, when something has a very high misery quotient, something comes of that and some quality is produced that, if you can capture it and project it, comes on the screen and affects you. I think it comes out sometime in the fall. They’ve delayed it for a year or a year and a half, but I’m glad they did. It will be worth seeing.

He also went into detail about how there was a lot of improv throughout the first film; describing himself as "the mouth of the Ghostbusters".

"It was a hard job. The four of us – Ernie Hudson, Danny, Harold and I – knew we were gonna sink or swim together, so we were always looking out for each other. We were constantly making sure that everybody was pumping and all getting it.

"As far as improvising goes, Harold was the mind and brain of the Ghostbusters, Danny was the heart of the Ghostbusters, Ernie was the soul of the Ghostbusters, and I was the mouth of the Ghostbusters. I got to talk a lot. When the special effects start to rear their ugly head, that’s when I had to work a little bit and earn my money and earn my keep to comment on it, as an audience member and the wiseacre of our group, in order to keep some false courage up about what we were going after, which we were truly terrified of. Even the sets were scary to us, really."

Murray also touched on his reluctant return for Ghostbusters 2, as well as what he felt went wrong.

"I was very, very reluctant to do it. I was in absolutely no hurry. I probably thought that the only reason anyone would want another one was just to make money. And I was probably the most reluctant. Someone outfoxed me anyway."

"It ended up not being the story they wrote. They got us in the sequel under false pretenses. Harold had this great idea, but by the time we got to shooting it, I showed up on set and went, “What the hell is this? What is this thing?” But we were already shooting it, so we had to figure out how to make it work. That was a great bunch of people. Just to be together was great. I probably like the first one better than the second one, just because the first cut is the deepest."

You can read the full interview HERE.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife release this November!

When a single mother and her two children move to a new town, they soon discover that they have a connection to the original Ghostbusters and their grandfather's secret legacy.