One of Ernie Hudson's most famous roles is that of Winston Zeddemore, a late addition to the titular team in 1984 supernatural comedy, Ghostbusters.
Hudson recently spoke to Living Life Fearless about Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and revealed his opinion of the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, which polarized audiences. The actor stated that he liked the film, but that rebooting was not the right decision. He explained, "A reboot, to me, means you're trying to do the movie over. Another version of what we already did. And I think that was a mistake," adding, "It wasn't a continuation or an extension of. It was somehow a different universe there. You know what I mean? It's kind of like us, but it's us but not us." He went on to elaborate that a reboot comes with certain issues attached: "But like I said, it just felt like a retelling of the same story, which automatically causes comparisons that you really don't need to be doing."
Director Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reboot stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones as an all-female iteration of the Ghostbusters. The original franchise cast members, including Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver and Hudson himself also appear in brief cameos. The reboot was mired in controversy, stemming from the response to the film on social media. While some of the negative responses targeted the female cast, some of it criticized the decision to reboot the franchise instead of continuing it.
The reboot ultimately received positive reviews from professional critics, but became a box office bomb, grossing $229.1 million on a budget of $144 million. It was reported that the film would have needed to earn at least $300 million to break even. Its financial performance, coupled with the controversy, prompted Sony to cancel plans for a sequel of the reboot and instead develop a continuation of the original franchise.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is currently in production with the original cast set to make appearances in their respective roles. However, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the project has been hit with multiple delays. It was originally scheduled to hit theaters July 10, 2020. Its release was pushed back to March 5. It was recently reported that Sony has pushed the project back again, with a new release date of Nov. 11.
Directed by Jason Reitman, Ghostbusters: Afterlife stars Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd and Mckenna Grace. The film arrives in theaters Nov. 11.
Source: Living Life Fearless