Ghostbusters: Afterlife star Bill Murray says Harold Ramis and Rick Moranis are “greatly missed.” It was recently revealed that Murray, along with Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd, returned to the Ghostbusters franchise for the third installment. The new story from Jason Reitman puts the focus on a younger generation and the roles of the original stars have yet to be officially revealed. Reitman has said that his movie is a “love letter” to fans of the franchise.
Jason Reitman has already confirmed that Harold Ramis will be involved in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The actor sadly passed away in 2014, but it is believed unused footage from the first installment will bring him back in some capacity. On the other side of things, Rick Moranis chose not to take part in the sequel or the 2016 all-female reboot. In a new interview, Bill Murray, who was wearing a panda mask, spoke about the two actors not being involved. He explains.
“We’re missing two great people. We’re missing Rick Moranis and we’re missing Harold Ramis. And they’re greatly missed for so many reasons. They were so much a part of the creation of it and the fun of it. But Harold is featured in the story of the movie, so it’s going to be very interesting.”
The young family at the focus of Ghostbusters: Afterlife is Egon Spengler’s family. As for how else he’ll be involved in the story, that is unclear at the moment, but Ghostbusters fans seem to be pretty excited to see how everything fits together from the little amount of footage we’ve seen from promotional material. Bill Murray is excited for everybody to see the movie, which says a lot since he resisted being a part of the franchise for so long.
Ghostbusters fans were really hoping that Rick Moranis was going to be a secret cameo, but according to Bill Murray, that isn’t going to happen. The actor largely retired from acting in the late 1990s and has since been very picky about taking on new roles. When asked about not taking part in the 2016 all-female reboot, Moranis said he wasn’t interested in visiting the past in that capacity. It seems that he still feels the same way, though he is doing the next Honey, I Shrunk the Kids sequel, Shrunk.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife was set to be one of Sony’s biggest summer releases this year, but that has changed for obvious reasons. It was set to open on July 10th, 2020. Instead, it will now open on March 5th, 2021. While waiting eight more months is a bit of a drag, it does hopefully give Jason Reitman some extra time to carefully get what he wants out of the story and the final edit. Plus, it gives some extra time to make sure the visual effects are on point. You can watch the interview with Bill Murray below, thanks to the Ellen Show YouTube channel.
