ghostbusters: afterlife
DIRECTOR Jason Reitman STARRING Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, McKenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver ETA 10 July 2020 5 March 2021
“If I think about who I’m making this movie for, it’s my father,” says director Jason Reitman (Up In The Air, Juno) of the latest, and delayed, Ghostbusters sequel. “We all know what it’s like to be told stories by our parents. I’m really honoured to get a chance to tell one back to him from the world he brought to life.”
This belated sequel to Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II sees a single mum (Carrie Coon) and her two kids (Finn Wolfhard, McKenna Grace) move into an Oklahoma farmhouse, only to find there’s something strange in the neighbourhood. Reitman’s keeping schtum about how everything links back to his dad’s movies from the ’80s, though a nearby mine bears the name of Ivo Shandor, architect of the Manhattan skyscraper in the original film, and Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd return as their original characters (in the 2016 reboot, they all cameoed but as new characters). A symbolic case of passing the proton packs, perhaps?
“Before I ever thought I could make a Ghostbusters film, the image of a 12-year-old girl carrying a proton pack popped into my head and just wouldn’t leave,” says Reitman. “I’m floored by the idea of what it would be like to find a proton pack in your grandparents’ basement…”
GO BIG SCREEN Big laughs and bigger effects need to be experienced in a crowd.