Ghostbusters: Afterlife focuses on a new generation of ‘busters, but there’s good news for longtime fans: the original Ghostbusters are set to appear in the new movie! It’s been over 30 years since the last time we saw Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), so we’re especially excited to hear that much of the original cast is set to return for the new movie. In fact, judging by the movie’s premise, they’ll play very important roles.
Afterlife focuses on three new characters: Callie (played by Carrie Coon), a single mom who turns out to have a family connection to one of the original Ghostbusters, and her two children, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). Keep reading to find out who you can expect to see in the new movie, and whose presence looms large even without his onscreen appearance.
Everett Collection / Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Is Bill Murray in Ghostbusters Afterlife?
Murray is the only one of the original crew to appear, in any form, in the new trailer. While we don’t actually see him, he can be heard in the trailer’s narration, a clip from the original 1984 Ghostbusters. “Call it fate. Call it luck. Call it karma. I believe that everything happens for a reason,” he says.
Everett Collection / Copyright Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Co / Everett Collection
Is Dan Aykroyd in Ghostbusters Afterlife?
Aykroyd is joining his old costars for appearances in Afterlife, although the exact details of their roles haven’t been revealed yet.
“We’ve shot our part-myself, Murray, Sigourney, and Annie Potts,” Akroyd told The Greg Hill Show, according to Gizmodo. “And it was really exciting working on this new idea and new take on the story which Jason, who’s a really incredible, fine filmmaker came up with.”
Everett Collection / Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Is Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters Afterlife?
Great news – Hudson will return too, meaning that all three of the surviving original Ghostbusters will be in the movie. The news of Hudson’s return came in an unexpected and low-key way: he filmed a video on the celebrity-appearance platform Cameo in which he revealed that he was shooting the new Ghostbusters flick at that time.
Everett Collection / Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Is Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters Afterlife?
Ramis is the only one of the original Ghostbusters not to return for the new movie, and there’s a real-life reason: Ramis died in 2014, at the age of 69, after complications from an autoimmune disease. His character, however, plays a crucial (albeit posthumous) role in the movie, since the protagonists of Afterlife are his secret daughter and her two children.