Dan Aykroyd Defends ‘Ghostbusters’ 2016 All-Female Reboot: “It Works Really Great”
Who you gonna call? Dan Aykroyd has a few funny women in mind.
Despite its initial reception, the Academy Award nominee recently defended the 2016 female-led reboot of his 1984 comedy classic Ghostbusters as a movie “that you want to watch again.”
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“I liked the movie [director] Paul Feig made with those spectacular women,” he told People. “I was mad at them at the time because I was supposed to be a producer on there and I didn’t do my job and I didn’t argue about costs. And it cost perhaps more than it should, and they all do. All these movies do.
“But boy, I liked that film. I thought that the villain at the end was great. I loved so much of it. And of course, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones and Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, you’re never going to do better than that. So I go on the record as saying I’m so proud to have been able to license that movie and have a hand and have a part in it, and I’m fully supportive of it, and I don’t besmirch it at all. I think it works really great amongst all the ones that have been made,” added Aykroyd.
He said of the reboot, “These are movies that you want to watch again, you want to see them again. I think that’s neat to make stuff that endures, that people want to watch once, twice, thrice.”
Aykroyd previously co-wrote (with Harold Ramis) and starred in the original 1984 movie and its 1989 sequel as Ray Stantz, alongside Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts and Rick Moranis. He also reprised the role in the two recent sequels Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which premiered in March.
The Saturday Night Live alum made a cameo as a taxi driver in the 2016 reboot, with Murray, Hudson, Weaver and Potts also making cameos.
Hudson commented on the reboot back in March, noting that the four stars were “brilliantly funny on their own,” but he didn’t think a reboot of the franchise was necessary.
“Fans were really invested in the story and the characters, and I think it was disappointing,” he told The Independent. “I enjoyed the movie. But I think it wasn’t what fans were hoping for.”
Hudson added, “Look, I’m a fan of Paul Feig, so I have nothing negative about him to say. Other than: I don’t quite understand why you do a reboot, you know what I mean? Just make another movie.”
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