A new look at Ghostbusters: Afterlife confirms Callie (Carrie Coon) is the daughter of late founding Ghostbuster Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), whose death plays a key role in the 30-years-later sequel to Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. When broke single mom Callie inherits her father’s home, she relocates with gearhead son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and science-minded daughter Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) to Summerville, Oklahoma, where Phoebe uncovers a treasure trove of her grandfather’s ghostbusting equipment — including a ghost trap that catches the eye of seismologist-slash-school teacher Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd).
When Grooberson investigates strange seismic activity secretly tied to an original Ghostbusters villain, his search brings him into contact with Callie and her family — who have yet to uncover their connection to the mostly-forgotten Ghostbusters. The New York heroes are well remembered by fanboy Grooberson, who recalls the “Manhattan crossrip” of 1984.
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“Somehow, a town that isn’t anywhere near a tectonic plate, that has no fault lines, no fracking, no loud music even, is shaking on a daily basis,” Grooberson can be heard saying in the trailer. As shown in a new still published by Vanity Fair, Callie stands by as Grooberson inspects a Summerville town map:
While it remains to be seen if Rudd’s Grooberson will suit up with a Proton Pack as a member of a new generation of Ghostbusters, but Phoebe can be seen following in her grandfather’s footsteps as she fires a proton stream at a fleeing ghost while Trevor drives a rusted-out Ecto-1 with Phoebe’s school friend (Logan Kim) along for the high-speed chase.
“[Director] Jason Reitman wrote a beautiful, heartfelt script that takes the real DNA from the first two movies and transfers that directly to the third, the next generation. It hands the legacy off to a new generation of stars, and players, and actors, and characters,” producer and original Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd previously said on The Greg Hill Show, where Aykroyd confirmed the returns of franchise stars Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts and Bill Murray.
“It was really exciting working around this new idea, a new take on the story which Jason — who’s a really incredible and fine filmmaker — came up with. So I’m pretty excited,” he added. “You never know in the film business. Nobody knows about anything. ‘Nobody knows nothing,’ as the great writer William Goldman said. Nobody knows anything, you don’t know what’s going to be a hit or not. But I have really good feelings for this, just because of the quality of the stars we’ve got there.”
Ghostbusters: Afterlife releases July 10.
