Ernie Hudson, who will reprise his role as Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbuster: Afterlife, says that the 2016 reboot of the franchise was a mistake. Hudson starred alongside Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, and temporarily Rick Moranis, as the original Ghostbusters in the 1984 film and its sequel. The franchise was an instant pop culture sensation spawning cartoons, comics, and toys.

After Murray's refusal to return for a sequel and Ramis's death in 2014, studio heads opted for a reboot of the series with 2016's Ghostbusters. Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon starred as an original team of paranormal investigators. The film was divisive, not so much due to its quality, but because a number of fans were upset by the fact that it was a reboot and not a sequel.

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Speaking to Living Life Fearless, Hudson echoed the opinion that rebooting the franchise was a misstep. Hudson clarified that he enjoyed the film: "the one with the ladies – that I actually liked a lot," he said. The movie's downfall, in his opinion, was that by calling it a reboot, it implied an erasure of the original film and simply told the same story again. Rebooting a timeless classic meant the film was not judged on its own merits and "causes comparisons that you really don’t need to be doing." Read his own words below:

[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. 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.

Ghostbusters 2016 Cast Leslie Jones

Hudson's read of the film is a nuanced criticism. It acknowledges the merits of the film that were unfortunately overshadowed by the legacy of the original films. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is set to be the Ghostbusters 3 fans have wanted all these years. The film will star Hudson, Murray, and Aykroyd in their original roles alongside a new generation led by McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard. Set 30 years after Ghostbusters II and directed by Jason Reitman, son of the original films' director Ivan Reitman, the long-awaited sequel may just ensure the continuation of the franchise for years to come.

There's no guarantee that a film with such high expectations will please everyone, but the blessing of the original stars is a positive sign. Murray says Ghostbusters: Afterlife will find a way to honor the late Ramis, and the creative team appears to be taking the right cues from the original films. It's unclear if the sequel will be related to the reboot in any way given the fact that the 2016 film was set in an alternate universe, but as crazier things have happened in the series, there's no counting the ladies out just yet.

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Source: Living Life Fearless

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