Bill Murray is officially part of the cast of ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’. The actor has famously had a complicated relationship with one of his most popular film franchises, so it wasn’t a given that he would return for this picture, but during a set visit, Vanity Fair managed to track down the actor and get his thoughts.
Referencing the passing of co-star (and original co-writer of the first two ‘Ghostbusters’) Harold Ramis, Murray stated:
“Well, we are a man down. That’s the deal. And that’s the story that we’re telling, that’s the story they’ve written.”
Murray will rejoin his original ‘Ghostbusters’ costars Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Sigourney Weaver, but ‘Afterlife’ isn’t about them.
Carrie Coon stars as Callie, the daughter of Ramis’ character, Egon Spengler. Mckenna Grace plays her “science obsessed” daughter, Phoebe, with Finn Wolfhard as her “gearhead” son, Trevor. They move to a small town in Oklahoma which is plagued by supernatural forces. Paul Rudd portrays one of Phoebe’s teachers, a Ghostbusters superfan. Armed with an arsenal of Egon’s Proton Packs, Ghost Traps, and Ecto-1, this family unit sets out to rid their town of spectres and ghouls.
The new film is directed by Jason Reitman, son of Ivan, the director of the original ‘Ghostbusters’ flicks. As he told Vanity Fair:
“If I think about who I’m making this movie for, it’s my father. We all know what it’s like to be told stories by our parents. I’m really honored to get a chance to tell one back to him from the world he brought to life.”
Of course, there are major changes in the new picture. The setting is moved from New York City to rural Oklahoma, and the focus is on children. It remains to be seen whether these alterations will be too much to appeal to fans of the originals.
But we will find out when ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ opens on July 10, 2020.
