When you take ten years to wrestle a script into place, a few ideas are going to fall by the wayside. This was the case with “Zombieland: Double Tap,” whose journey to the big screen involved plenty of rewrites, tweaks, and expired jokes. And as is often the case with long-gestating projects, sometimes it’s the ideas that didn’t come to fruition that are the most interesting.
READ MORE: Here’s How “Deadpool” Caused That 10-Year “Zombieland” Delay
Case in point: originally, screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick had hoped to build on the success of Bill Murray‘s cameo in the original film by creating a “Ghostbusters“-themed apocalypse in the sequel. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Reese explained how their planned flashback would’ve shown Murray surviving the earliest hours of the zombie apocalypse.
Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson got Bill Murray out on a golf course and were trying to convince him to do a sequel to “Ghostbusters.” Dan Aykroyd becomes a zombie and attacks Bill and there are golf carts going in the lake and golf clubs being swung at people.
Given what we’ve learned over the years about the cast’s interest in a canonical “Ghostbusters” sequel—that Aykroyd would sell his soul for another crack at the franchise and Murray could care less—this scene would’ve been an inspired way to poke fun at a sacred cow and lean into Murray’s cultured indifference as a pop culture icon. Of course, with the loss of Ramis in 2014, Reese and Wernick had to go a different direction, which put an end to any “Ghostbusters” plans.
READ MORE: Here’s Our Review of “Zombieland: Double Tap”
I’ll leave you to discover how and what the screenwriters landed on—I promise you won’t be disappointed—but in the meantime, let’s pour one out to the “Zombieland: Double Tap” scene that might’ve been. It’s a shame we missed our opportunity to watch Dan Aykroyd inadvertently end the world.