Why do you think Dan Aykroyd didn’t have the same late career success as Bill Murray?

Yeah but just FYI, the TC's talking about after the Ghostbusters movies. Driving Miss Daisy actually came out the same year as Ghostbusters 2.

Being a smug, egotistical, holier-than-thou asshole helped Murray stay relevant? Interesting.

I went back and looked at some of the comments in those links that I provided. Somebody in there argued that at the end of the day, Bill Murray was simply a better overall actor than Dan Aykroyd. Murray was much more adapt with expressing tenderness, empathy and romanticism.

Dan Aykroyd meanwhile, is who you would first call when you want an actor who can play a precise, fast-talking, prim-and-proper gruff "square". Perhaps his greatest gift as an actor is to memorize huge lists of complex technical jargon, facts and random trivia. Somebody else wrote that Aykroyd's performances simply didn't click with people as much as Murray's. To put things into a more proper perspective, Bill Murray's main schtick is that of a charming eccentric while Dan Aykroyd is a nutcase conspiracy theorist.

In many of his better known films, he was usually the support or the other talent were more prominent and did click with audiences (i.e. John Belushi, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks, John Candy). Basically, his relatively few successes came when playing off another actor with more star power. With the possible exception of Dragnet, all of the films in which he was the clear cut lead, bombed. In effect, it's easy to argue that Dan Aykroyd at the end of the day, wasn't really a bankable star on his own.

While Aykroyd himself is a talented and funny guy, he may have benefited from being at the right place at the right time. And he needs to be around other people to help reel him in. When he was given much more creative control later on in his career, the results were disastrous (see Nothing But Trouble).

Yeah he was the driving force behind the "House of Blues" franchises.

Dan Aykroyd when you get right down to it, has always been more of a character actor and "idea person" than a true blue movie star like Bill Murray if that makes sense.

He also has his own vodka called "Crystal Head Vodka". The bottles are shaped as skulls.

I meant to add this other point why I think that Bill Murray has enjoyed better success later in his career than Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd at the end of the day, was really more of a writer first and foremost and an actor second. He often wrote the scripts for his own films with the intent on casting himself in leading roles. So it's within reason to believe and suspect that the studios stopped agreeing to fund his projects when it was determined that he could no longer draw at the box office.

I also suspect that Dan Aykroyd simply has other interests besides acting and being a movie star. He has pretty much fashioned himself as a renaissance man and entrepreneur. Dan Aykroyd apparently, has a net worth of $180-$200 million, so it isn't like he needs to work too much as an actor if he really doesn't have to. Plus, he's almost 70 years old so it wouldn't be that surprising for a man his age to be slowing down anyway.

https://wealthygorilla.com/dan-aykroyd-net-worth/

https://www.wealthygenius.com/dan-aykroyd-net-worth/

This thread theorizes that Nothing But Trouble was the "beginning of the end" for Dan Aykroyd as a powerful creative force in Hollywood. It at the very least, killed his directing career before it got started. Nothing But Trouble is pretty much what would happen if you give Dan Aykroyd creative carte blanche and nobody (such as Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis on Ghostsbusters) is around to keep his more crazy ideas in check.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/movies-that-killed-careers.1078944/

Exit to Eden this thread argues, is what all but killed Dan Aykroyd as a box office draw. If not that, then Blues Brothers 2000 was the final nail in the coffin for him as a leading man.

If I were married to Donna Dixon and went to bed with her every night, then my life would probably be very good too! But seriously, Dan Aykroyd always struck me as a guy who didn't have a big ego. A lot of his bigger successes like you said, relied on his SNL partners. Therefore, other than a few exceptions like Doctor Detroit, there was rarely ever a full-fledged, "Dan Aykroyd movie" in which he was the sole draw. Don't forget Chevy Chase, who he did Spies Like Us with and Dragnet with Tom Hanks.

I suppose the problem with Aykroyd is that it's kind of hard to narrow down his on-screen personality when compared to Belushi, Murray, Murphy, and Chase. Like if you watch The Blues Brothers or Trading Places back to back with Ghostbusters or The Great Outdoors, you wouldn't think that he's the same guy. The closest that I can think of is that Aykroyd to borrow from the Nostalgia Critic upon seeing him in Pearl Harbor, is the master of exposition.