Spoilers for Ghostbusters follow.
For most of director Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, the titular quartet’s hunky receptionist, played by Chris Hemsworth, is more of a hindrance than a help. If the Ghostbusters need their phone answered, Hemsworth’s dim Kevin is likely to ignore the ringing or mangle the company’s name if he does, in fact, pick up. Still, Kevin is awfully nice to look at, so the Ghostbusters put up with his minor challenges now and then.
That changes late into the movie, when Kevin is possessed by the movie’s evil villain, Rowan. Suddenly Kevin’s office shenanigans seem like small potatoes compared to his ability to destroy Manhattan. As he hovers over the Mercado Hotel, the powered-up Kevin immobilizes an entire army sent to take him out, then forces the men to move their arms and limbs stiffly, in time with his commands. Think of it as a supernatural, abbreviated version of the hokey-pokey.
The moment doesn’t last very long, and by the time the Ghostbusters arrive on the scene, the army is stock-still and frozen in place. But the closing credits hint that something more was snipped from the main feature: While the names of the people who worked on the movie scroll past, we flash back to the beginning of the Mercado Hotel scene, and this time we see Kevin leading the troops in some sort of elaborate, much more enthusiastic boogie-down.
Last week, Feig explained to Vulture that the dance sequence had been cut from the body of the movie and repurposed for the closing credits with totally different music accompanying it — and that he was very conflicted about it all.
“This was the biggest decision of my life, whether to keep this scene in the movie or not,†said Feig. Originally, the villain was meant to snap his fingers and turn Times Square into what the director called “a giant discotheque,†leading the army in a synchronized shimmy to the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing.†It was one of Feig’s favorite sequences, but as he neared his final cut, he realized it wasn’t quite working as a third-act set piece.
“There was something about it where it became a bit of an island,†Feig said. “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!â€
Though he hated to lose the scene, Feig found a compromise: “We refurbished it and put it in the end credits, where we could use so much more of it. Originally, it was supposed to be 30 seconds long, but we could use all that footage in the end credits. And I will tell you this, when the extended cut comes out on DVD, we restored the full scene into the body of the movie, with effects. So you will be able to see it in the movie.â€
That’s good news for people who want to experience a new side of Thor star Hemsworth, but bad news for anyone who expects to measure up to the multitalented actor. “He’s so handsome and nice and talented, and on top of it, now he’s funny as hell and he can dance?†mused Feig. “There’s nothing the man can’t do, and it’s really upsetting.â€