8 Lost Movie Scenes That Were Found Years Later
The deleted scenes we thought we'd never see.
In filmmaking, it’s always better to have more footage than you need so that when you’re in that editing suite you have plenty of options when it comes to the hard decisions on that final cut.
Some decisions, made for any number of reasons, often leave scenes, sequences or entire alternate endings to movies on the cutting room floor. Ensuing interviews and hearsay sometimes however give these missing moments a second life. Though they had been cut - and perhaps even because they had been cut - they gain a strange attraction, a wonderment of what could’ve been.
In the halcyon days of the DVD format’s youth, “deleted scenes” were some of the most exciting words you could see on a box, and special features like this drove many of us to repurchase films to witness footage we’d never seen before.
"I can finally see this moment I’ve heard about for years!"
Some movies had to wait decades for that moment, and some didn’t get the luxury at all as their extra footage was lost, probably in some unlabelled cupboard in a dusty studio backlot somewhere until one brave soul took it upon themselves to dig into the archives.
As such, the following deleted scenes from films were the ones we thought would never see the light of day.
8. Ghostbusters - Fort Detmerring
As wonderful as the original Ghostbusters film is, there was always a scene in it that seemed to come out of nowhere. There’s no other way to describe it other than “Ray’s Ghost Blowjob” scene where, during the montage at the midpoint of the movie, Dan Aykyroyd dreams of receiving pleasure from a ghostly figure.
It turns out that that’s because it was part of a longer sequence that was eventually cut out of the film for pace. In the ensuing years, crew on the film would mention that it came from a scene where Ray and fellow ghostbuster Winston would visit the haunted Fort Detmerring military post. Ghostheads, as they are affectionately known, wondered about the full sequence for years.
In 2017, a whole 33 years after the movie was released, Ghost Corps (Sony’s division for Ghostbusters projects) announced that they had found the tape containing the scene. It was later released for the 35th anniversary release.
It’s immediately clear why it was cut, being a slow and shallow sequence that doesn’t really feel as though it belongs. As nice as it is to see these classic characters in new footage, director Ivan Reitman choosing to splice a portion of it into the final film’s montage as a quick gag, rather than a whole sequence, turned out to be a stroke of genius.