For years, fans have been dying to get Bill Murray reunited with his "Ghostbusters" crew. "Ghostbusters 3" is a no go, but Entertainment Weekly made it happen for our cover. Trying to pin down Murray may be legendary by now — calling his 1-800 number is the only way to get in touch with the actor — but it’s the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the various ways we’ve had to beg, borrow, cajole, and celebrate our way into assembling casts for EW’s beloved reunions issue.
Al Roker gets together with the cast of 'Ghostbusters'
For the fifth anniversary of the issue, we brought the cast of "Little House on the Prairie" together for the first time in years, kicked off the campaign for TV's "Sisters" to be released on streaming or DVD, and found a replacement llama — sorry Tina — for "Napoleon Dynamite."
Ten years later, "Dynamite," which was made for $400,000 and went on to earn $45 million at the box office, is a cult classic that none of its stars could even have imagined at the time. “[After the movie came out] my mother-in-law, who does a lot of humanitarian work in Honduras, emails us and said, ‘I think your movie’s done OK. I just saw a fisherman wearing a ‘Vote for Pedro’ T-shirt’,” says director Jared Hess.
Our "Fabulous Baker Boys" reunion featuring the brothers Bridges, Jeff and Beau, and the gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer, channeled the iconic piano scene from the movie in a photo shoot that was nothing short of incredible.
Jeff Bridges tells TODAY how he helped brother Beau go bald
We reassembled the "Mean Girls" Plastics. “Regina is a 'Real Housewife,'” says Rachel McAdams of her character now. “She’d have too much time on her hands, for sure. She’s probably found all her other Reginas.”
Cast of 'Sisters' together again after 18 years
We also got the men of "Monty Python" ...
... and re-drafted Team Sorkin for "Sports Night."
And we may have even inspired a reboot or two. Says Sorkin: “I would love to go back and rewrite every episode. I could do that show better. There’s even been times when I’ve thought about setting up the same premise and either doing episode 46 or doing it with a new cast and re-piloting it.” You don’t have to ask Josh Malina twice. “I’m in,” he says. Peter Krause, too: “I’d do it again, if Aaron Sorkin wanted to reboot 'Sports Night' on HBO or Showtime or on Netflix.”
Head over to EW.com for more photos and interviews from EW’s reunions double issue.
Matt Bean is the editor of Entertainment Weekly. Follow him on Twitter.
