The upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife movie will pay tribute to one of the franchise’s original creators and stars, Harold Ramis, in more ways than one.
As revealed by Empire Magazine (via MovieWeb), not only is Ramis’s Egon Spengler central to the plot, as the film will feature the character’s granddaughter in a pivotal role, there’s also a dedication to the late actor at the end of the film, it was revealed by director Jason Reitman in a recent interview.
“This movie is for my father, for my daughter and for [Harold Ramis]. For me, that’s it. For a long time, I had the idea of a girl finding a proton pack in a barn, walking outside and firing it into a row of corn and popcorn flew out. And I just didn’t know what to do with it. When Harold passed all of a sudden (in 2014), I knew who she was: it was Egon’s granddaughter. The concept of this intergenerational conversation between her and her grandfather become the real roots of what this story was. It became a Spengler story,” Reitman told Empire Magazine.
Jason’s father, Ivan Reitman, who directed the first two Ghostbusters films and is serving as a producer in the upcoming installment, also divulged in the interview that he thought of Ramis as a kind of older brother figure that he looked up to for his fast dialogue writing ability.
Unlike the 2016 Paul Feig Ghostbusters reimagining with an all-new cast, the upcoming film will take place firmly in the same universe as the original 1980s films. Feig’s film also paid tribute to Ramis in various ways and featured cameos of the remaining original actors as well.
However, audiences of Ghostbusters: Afterlife will be treated to the likes of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts returning as their original characters when the film hits theaters on November 19th, 2021.