Wow. Thanks. Yeah. I think it worked out pretty well if Eddie Murphy's role was going to the Venkman role. I prefer the way it turned out. Plus, imagine what Real Ghostbusters would be like if Eddie Murphy had been in the Venkman role. Too different for my taste frankly. I also liked Winston being a Christian in Ghostbusters 1 and that probably wouldn't have happened if that other guy had been cast. Though maybe I'm wrong.Eddie Murphy was who they originally wanted for the role of Winston.That's a popular, if oversimplified, take on the evolution of the film. Both Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd have said that the Eddie Murphy part eventually became the Venkman role.
According to Harold Ramis in the 1985 book Making Ghostbusters, Dan's script had three characters who were pretty much identical. Only two of the names survived into the final film.
“ln Dan's draft. you could not differentiate the characters." Ramis continued. "Stantz and Venkman and Ramsey—the character we changed to Winston—were all essentially the same. That was fairly representative of Dan's writing at the time. He was very much concerned with story and structure and effects, but he would sort of stay on the surface of his characters. So one of the first things we did — together with Ivan —was work out distinctive character traits for the Ghostbusters so that each would have his own internal motivation and personal style."
So from this we know that originally the Ramsey role was interchangeable with Venkman and Stantz. Once Harold joined the project for the rewrites and as a potential fourth buster, the character of Egon was created for him. Ramsey eventually became Winston.
And despite recent years' trend to paint the original 1984 film in a negative light regarding its treatment of women and minorities, that was not the writers' intent. Here's another germane quote by Harold from the same book, recounting how the Writers Guild influenced their approach at the outset, and the unforeseen impact it had on other characters.
“As writers. we'd never done a black character. Nor had we ever written women very well. The Writers Guild sends out letters about this regularly — ‘let's see more women and more minorities.‘ So when we wrote Winston. l think we had our own little reverse backlash going. We bent over backwards to make Winston's character good—and in doing so. we made him so good that he was the best character in the movie. We looked at it and said: 'Jesus! He's got all the good lines.‘ At the same time, everybody was saying Bill's character was a little weak. So, little by little, we started shifting Winston's attitude to Bill‘s character— which made perfect sense — and we also ended up delaying Winston‘s introduction until much later in the film."
(The earlier drafts had Winston present at the hotel for the Slimer bust, and taking command because the other three were being too dangerous with the equipment.)
This forgotten nugget about Winston's significance being transferred to Venkman was echoed in a far more recent documentary soundbyte when Aykroyd was asked about Eddie's role becoming Ernie's, and Dan Aykroyd corrects them saying the Eddie part became the one played by "Billy, really". (I think it was the Movies That Made Us, but I can't locate a quick soundbyte at the moment.)
As for the popularity of the Eddie 'almost getting cast' story, it's always mystified me why no one mentions Gregory Hines anymore, who was also in talks for the role. This next quote not only makes it sound like Hines was much farther along in negotiations than Murphy, it also touches on earlier observations in this thread about too many comedians.
Again from Making Ghostbusters, this time from associate producer Michael C. Gross:
"l think the original concept for Winston's character was younger and hipper. At one point. we were talking with Gregory Hines about playing the part. We also considered getting a young, black comedian — somebody like Eddie Murphy. But, in retrospect, it's probably just as well we didn't. lt would have been just too much. As it is, there is a nice balance among the four characters. Winston is the moderate character against which the other three can play."
So if anyone wants to wonder what a Ghostbusters would have been like with Eddie Murphy in it, just realize it would come at the loss of the Venkman character we know now. For all the people saying "Ernie Hudson didn't get to do enough" in our timeline, in some alternate universe people are making the same complaint about Bill Murray being underutilized.
Alex
Statistics: Posted by Winston1986 — November 26th, 2025, 1:36 pm