Ghostbusters: Afterlife Director Shares Photo of Original Director's Sneaky Cameo
The release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife brought with it a number of Easter eggs and cameos that devout Ghostbusters fans were able to identify, with some of these nods being much more subtle than others. Director of the film Jason Reitman recently took to Instagram to showcase one of the more obscure cameos in the film, as his father Ivan Reitman, who directed both Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, served as a double for Bill Murray's Peter Venkman. Interestingly, the photo sees him sporting a flight suit with a Spengler nametag, with Spengler having previously been played by the late Harold Ramis.
"Directing dad. For an insert shot of Venkman firing up his proton pack, we brought in the hands of another Ghostbuster. My favorite Easter egg," Reitman captioned the photo of the cameo.
In a follow-up comment, Reitman went on to confirm the original director appeared only in one shot, pointing out, "My father only suited up for this one shot. The brilliant Bob Gunton also did some incredible work in the flight suit, however we wouldn't want to talk about the ending."
This follow-up remark is likely due to the fact that Ivan was wearing a Spengler suit, and with the film featuring other references to Spengler, Jason seemingly wanted to shoot down any speculation about his father having appeared as Spengler in other sequences.
Despite Ramis having passed away in 2014, Spengler still plays a major part of the overall narrative of Afterlife. Reitman previously detailed how, by focusing the movie on Egon's daughter and grandchildren, the script could pay respects to the characters that came before it while also introducing audiences to all-new heroes.
"When I came up with these kids, Phoebe and Trevor, I realized they were the grandchildren of Egon. And that was the reason to make the movie," Reitman pointed out to The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month. "There was something really lovely about the character of Egon, I think a lot of people can relate to, and that is Egon struggled to communicate with the world. And we wanted to create in Phoebe a character in just the same way: a 12-year-old girl, who, like all Ghostbusters, is an outsider who becomes a hero by putting on the proton pack."
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is in theaters now.
Are you surprised by the cameo? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
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