Bill Murray says he was tricked into starring in Ghostbusters sequel ‘under false pretenses’

‘I showed up on set and went, “What the hell is this?”’ actor recalls

Bill Murray has said he was “outfoxed” when he joined the Ghostbusters sequel “under false pretenses”. 

The actor recently discussed his history with the beloved franchise when speaking on a panel at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

He said he was “very, very reluctant” to make a sequel to the 1984 original but was eventually “outfoxed” when the studio pitched him a story idea that never materialised into the sequel’s screenplay.

“I thought that the only reason anyone would want another one was just to make money and I was probably the most reluctant,” said Murray.

“Someone outfoxed me anyway. I don’t know if Ivan [Reitman, producer] set it up but they got us all back together in a room and really, we hadn’t been together in a room since the movie came out and it was just really, really fun to be together.”

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He added that his co-stars Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts are “spectacular” and “funny as hell”.

The 70-year old said that he had agreed to star in the 1989 sequel after the studio “pitched a story idea that was really great. I thought, ‘Holy cow, we could make that work’”.

However, as Murray explained: “It ended up not being the story they wrote. They got us in the sequel under false pretenses.

“Harold [Ramis] 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.”

The actor went on to offer his opinion on the two films, stating: “I probably like the first one better than the second one, just because the first cut is the deepest.”

Murray is due to star opposite Stranger Things’s Finn Wolfhard in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which is slated for release on 11 November later this year.

Speaking about the forthcoming film, he said director Jason Reitman’s script “really brings [the franchise] back to life”.