Paul Feig Elaborates On That 'Ghostbusters' Dance Sequence; Stars Talk Deleted Scenes
Director Paul Feig likes to shoot a lot of alternate jokes and takes. Because of that, the first cuts for his movies tend to be quite long. In the case of Ghostbusters, for example, the first cut his editor put together was over four hours long (which isn't actually too outrageous of a runtime if Feig is talking about the assembly cut). Some of those deleted scenes will be restored back into the film, as Sony plans on releasing an extended cut of Ghostbusters later this year.
Below, find out more about the Ghostbusters deleted scenes.
Feig told Collider he cut his editor's four-hour version down to a "slim" three and a half hours. The extended cut that'll be available the Blu-ray is only 15 minutes longer than the theatrical cut (116 minutes), and the studio allowed Feig and all involved to finish some VFX for a few of the sequences we didn't see in the finished film.
One of the "deleted scenes" we probably won't see on the Blu-ray involves Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Kevin (Chris Hemsworth). While speaking with MTV UK, Wiig joked about a sex scene between Erin and Kevin that got cut because it was "too believable and sweaty":
Feig told CinemaBlend the end credits' dance sequence was originally longer and occurred during the finale:
We repurposed it into the end credits: [the dance sequence]. I loved it, and it's actually going to be in the extended version of the movie. But there's some babies that you just have to lose. That's the hardest thing about doing comedy. You have so many funny things, but if you stack up too many, or it comes at a time when the audience wants to be moving forward... if you hang on to them you slow everything down. So that was a really tough one.
The co-writer/director elaborated to Vulture, saying the scene brought the film to a grinding halt:
There was something about it where it became a bit of an island. It was stopping the flow for the audience, because even though they really loved it, they were having trouble coming back out of it. It was making the rhythm a little too goofy, in a weird way, and it was hurting our story a little bit ... but it was Chris Hemsworth doing this amazing dance sequence!
Feig is putting the dance sequence into the extended cut. We're not sure what else we'll see in the alternate version of the film, but screenwriter Katie Dippold did tell us about a few other jokes that got left on the cutting room floor, including Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) playing more pranks on Erin Gilbert.
Ghostbusters is now in theaters.