Warning! There are major spoilers below for Ghostbusters Afterlife.
The new sequel “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” has a number of surprises for longtime fans of the franchise, in addition to telling an all-new story about Egon Spengler’s granddaughter picking up where he left off and saving the day. One of those surprises is the return of a beloved character from the original film.
1984 “Ghostbusters”The film introduced Gozer, an ancient entity of another universe that wreaks havoc in New York City in the original film. Und in “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” we learn that Gozer’s return was being heralded in the middle of Oklahoma, where Ivo Shandor had built a throne to worship Gozer’s return.
The final of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,”Gozer is back in triumph, and Olivia Wilde plays the part. Jason Reitman, co-director and writer of the film, spoke out about how it came about. “I’ve known Olivia a long time, we’ve wanted to work with each other a long time. I don’t think we expected it to be in this format,”He acknowledged it.
Wilde was actually presented the idea by Reitman over text. “I reached out to her like, ‘Hey, you wanna be Gozer?’ I just texted her, and she was down from the word ‘go’.”Wilde was also noted by the filmmaker as a great trooper, despite having to perform a makeup-intensive role that required little screen time. “It’s not a fun day because you have to show up at the crack of dawn and be covered in prosthetics and makeup and have weird contact lenses put in your eyes,” Reitman explained. “It’s a beast of a role, but she came at it with complete joy.”
The film also included a professional dancer. Emma PortnerHalf of Gozer’s performance, specifically whenever the character was on the screen. “had to do unusual body language”This was explained. “the body performance of the spirit of Gozer was Portner, who is absolutely extraordinary. She’s literally one of the great dancers alive and totally cool, and did a lot of that work out there in that dirt field.”
As for that other cameo in the finale – with J.K. Simmons playing an entombed Ivo Shandor half – Reitman acknowledged that it’s “not one of my movies if J.K. isn’t involved,” alluding to Simmons’ roles in every film Reitman has made thus far.
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife”Currently, it is only being shown in theaters.