Kingpin;149894
I think, outside of the Ghostbusters universe, he isn't in the promo stuff because he wasn't as well known as Ramis, Murray and Aykroyd.

That's also a very good point I happened to overlook.

I remember seeing a video on YouTube with Ernie being interviewed at an autograph convention( around summer 2008 I think) saying that back in 1984 he was still an unknown actor despite a hand full supporting roles in a variety of films and television shows. Ultimately it was the marketing people at Columbia had the final say on the posters and that stuff, and he was not left off on purpose. He also said that other people he has worked with in the past have encountered this often because when you do a big studio film with big name actors, the supporting players are often overlooked even if they have a good list of credits to their name.

My old man brought up a while back that Winston Zeddemore seemed to be almost an afterthought in the movie.

They even screwed up his billing on the trading cards for the second movie. The captions( I kid you not) read: Bill Murray as Venkman, Harold Ramis as Spengler, Dan Aykroyd as Stantz, and Ernie Hudson as Winston“

I'm not kidding you about that.

Yeah…there's a reason he's at all the conventions; guys…watch him in the movies. In fact, there's one scene in specific to make sure you watch:

the scene where they're in jail talking about the Shandor building. I hate to break it to you but he's not that great of an actor. It was kind of his chance to ”show his stuff"… Well, he did…and he's now on Season 4 of Heroes, as well on Psych opposite acting joke Phylicia Rashad.

There's your answer.

Probably a great guy, I don't doubt it…but his acting leaves a lot–and I do mean a lot–to be desired.

Ecto_Plasmic;149916
I would say the whole story is really wrapped around the 3 central busters. Ernie is just a guy who got a job with the company.

This was always the reasoning I thought to be correct. Although he was in the majority of the first film he still wasn't an original Ghostbuster, he joined the team partway through as a fourth worker.

I'm sure the fact he was a lesser known actor was a big part of it but I think if Winston was intended to be considered a main character in that sense they'd have picked someone more widely known to play the part. I don't really agree it was because of his acting ability though, but that's just my opinion.

flameboy2;154108
This was always the reasoning I thought to be correct. Although he was in the majority of the first film he still wasn't an original Ghostbuster, he joined the team partway through as a fourth worker.

I'm sure the fact he was a lesser known actor was a big part of it but I think if Winston was intended to be considered a main character in that sense they'd have picked someone more widely known to play the part. I don't really agree it was because of his acting ability though, but that's just my opinion.

If he was really as great as the others, by Ghostbusters II his billing would have been as high; it wasn't. That's 5 years he had to become that big…and it never happened.

Again, great guy, great Ghostbuster…just didn't have the panache for top billing.

I just think if it was his acting ability they'd have picked someone who could have been better in the role. I just still think personally it was more to do with who the role the character of Winston was supposed to have than a reflection of a disaproval of the way he played the role.

I agree he's not a fantastic actor and not on the level of the other 3, but I don't think he was meant to be, he was just a supporting role, and who ever played winston would only ever have been there for that reason and would never have been used to promote the movies any differently. If they ever wanted the winston character to be equal to the others the actor they used would have had to be equal to the other 3. Ernie Hudson was just never destined or intended to be as big as the other 3.

I still agree with Ecto_Plasmic's theory that Winstonw as just, and only ever intended to be a guy who got a job to support the 3 main cast.