I have always believed that Winston was the most underappreciated character in the Ghostbusters movies. In the first film we don’t see him until 41 minutes into the 105 minute film. Does he join because he feels the need to help the city? Or because he’s had an experience with a ghost? No. He wants a paycheck. And while you and I, rational real world adults, can sympathize with that, it’s not a great motivation for a fictional character and turns Winston, the only character of color, into the hired help.
Winston was the “straight man” in the group. That’s it. He’s the one that says what the audience in thinking or he should have been except his character was cut more than construction paper in a kindergarten class. According to an interview Ernie Hudson did with Entertainment Weekly back in 2014:
“When I originally got the script, the character of Winston was amazing and I thought it would be career-changing. The character came in right at the beginning of the movie and had an elaborate background: he was an Air Force major something, a demolitions guy. It was great”
Here’s the article (ew.com/article/2014/11/05/ghostbusters-ernie-hudson/)
But then he read the updated script and all of Winston’s great backstory was cut. When he confronted Ivan Reitman about it he was told that the studio wanted to give Bill Murray more to do so they took away a lot of Winston’s character. Now we can only imagine what could have been. How the great Ernie Hudson could have crushed it with a meatier role to sink his teeth into.
That time has unfortunately passed. We can’t retcon that without a remake and I believe the future of the franchise is in the potential for sequels, not a remake. So what we have left to us now is the canon and what Winston has done after Ghostbusters 2.
A couple years ago I played Ghostbusters: The Video Game when it was rereleased digitally and I had a blast. What I also noticed was that Winston had a much improved character. He went back to school and got a doctorate and he just felt like a bigger part of the Ghostbusters.
Then Ghostbusters: Afterlife came out and it retconned the video game, which had been the unofficial “third movie” that they never got to make. But even though Winston’s story is different in the legacy sequels, he’s still shown more respect that whatever mouth breathing pleb of a studio executive decided he deserved back in the 80s.
In the current storyline Winston Zeddemore is the most successful of all the Ghostbusters. He is a wealthy business man who single handedly keeps Ray’s Occult Books open and (spoiler alert for Ghostbusters Afterlife) at the end of the last film we see him at the old firehouse, though I can’t remember if he newly purchased it or if he owned it before. He brings the Ecto-1 in and we get the feeling that soon the Ghostbusters are going to be back open for business.
It seems like Winston is going to be at the forefront of the series moving forward and I can’t wait. Though I wish we got the Winston promised to Hudson decades ago, I’m happy with the way the story is taking him.
UPDATE (2/18/26): As I edit and reshare this blog on Medium I have to add that I originally wrote this blog about three years ago, before Ghostbusters Frozen Empire came out and we got even more from Winston in that film. We now know that he’s not just rich, he’s Oprah Rich (anyone get that Zack and Miri make a Porno reference? Just me?… okay). He not only has a lot of money but he also fully funds a ghost busting research group that comes up with new tech, studies the ghosts, and has a bigger and more reliable containment unit.
I can say beyond the shadow of any doubt that Winston is now the head Ghostbuster. Especially after the untimely passing of Harold Ramis twelve years ago, this character improvement for Winston fits the bill perfectly.