Trivia / Ghostbusters: Afterlife

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• Approval of God:
  • Jason Reitman showed his script to his father Ivan as well as Harold Ramis' family so he could get their approval before officially starting the project. All of them gave their blessing and Jason said in an interview his father cried Tears of Joy when he saw the film's first cut.
  • Violet Ramis Stiel, the daughter of Harold Ramis, was also supportive of the film and Jason Reitman's take on it. She also gave her stamp of approval on Egon's send-off at the end of the film.
• Ascended Fanon: How It Should Have Ended had an alternative ending to the original Ghostbusters 1984 movie wherein Ray answers Gozer's "Are you a God?" question with "Yes" and they easily contain him/her with a trap. The dialogue also happens word-for-word as a Brick Joke in the movie, though it's Winston that now says the "We are all Gods here" line afterwards. The movie even features a sequence wherein the new Ghostbusters team distracts Gozer and attempts to trap him/her inside a ghost-trap. As it turns out a Class-VII (Demonic God Status) spectre like Gozer can't be contained with just a simple ghost-trap. It is however enough to take out one of the Terror-Dogs and free Phoebe's mom Callie from Zuul's possesion, which severely weakens and pisses off Gozer.
• Better Export for You: The US CD release of the film's soundtrack album is a burned-on-demand CD-R, which has a high risk of degrading over time due to the natural technical limitations of recorded discs. The European release, meanwhile, uses a more durable factory-pressed CD.
• Billing Displacement:
  • Mckenna Grace is billed third in the ending credits behind Carrie Coon and Finn Wolfhard, while Phoebe is the film's main character.
  • Bill Murray is billed ahead of Dan Aykroyd even though Ray has a larger role than Peter.
  • Bokeem Woodbine is listed among the top billed despite appearing in a single brief scene. Logan Kim and Celeste O'Connor, who have more prominent roles, come much later in the credits.
• California Doubling: Fort Macleod, Alberta stands for the Oklahoma town of Summerville. The trailer also shows scenes recognizably filmed in Calgary, Drumheller, Turner Valley, Beiseker, Dorothy, and Crossfield—all of which are in Canada.
• The Cast Showoff: A meta example. The end credits song, "A Ghost Never Leaves a Haunted House", is performed by Mckenna Grace.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Phoebe Spengler is voiced by movie actress Moka Kamishiraishi, better known for voicing Kun in Mirai of the Future. Likewise, Gozer and the mini-Marshmallow Men are voiced by comedian and fashion designer Naomi Watanabe.^note Curiously enough, she previously voiced Abby Yates in Ghostbusters (2016).
• The Character Died with Him: Egon's actor (Harold Ramis) died in 2014, long before this film went into production, and this film shows Egon dying in the prologue. But that doesn't stop him from appearing at the end as a spirit to help his family and teammates.
• Character Outlives Actor: Though Egon Spengler was killed at the beginning of the movie, he technically lived until 2021, seven years after the original actor portraying him passed away.
• Content Leak: A "final trailer" leaked several weeks in advance of the film's release date, which features some very spoilery reveals (including the death of a major character) that fans even urged others not to spoil for themselves, citing Trailers Always Spoil.
• Creator Couple: Carrie Coon, who plays the children’s mother Callie, and Tracy Letts, who plays a local store owner, are husband and wife in real life.
• Creator's Oddball: Jason Reitman is known more for directing lower budget dramas or dramedies, often written by Diablo Cody. This is his first genre film, let alone a franchise film with any degree of special effects work.
• Deleted Scene: On home releases for the movie, there's a single scene included: when Janine is at the farmhouse, she finds the lucky coin she gave Egon decades ago on a shelf and quickly pockets it. The scene also reveals that Egon had been cremated and Janine felt it would be best if he was with family.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Mckenna Grace had her long, blonde, straight hair cut, dyed and permed in order to play Phoebe.
• In Memoriam: The movie ends with a Dedication that reads, "for Harold".
• Meaningful Release Date: The film opened on November 19, 2021 — only two days before what would have been Harold Ramis' 77th Birthday.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The trailer features scenes missing from the movie:
  • Phoebe being bullied by her classmates who explode a bag of Doritos in her face.
  • Phoebe commenting on Trevor picking the "Station Wagon" (The Ecto-1) as the car he chose to fix out of all the cars around the farm, and Trevor replying it's the only one with an engine left.
  • Venkman's "Call it fate" speech is missing from the theatrical cut as well. It was a clip of dialogue from the original film.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: The ghost traps used in the Trap Field at Egon's farm are modified Spirit Halloween Ghostbusters Ghost Traps.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Olivia Wilde, Emma Porrter, and Shohreh Aghdashloo take over the body and voice roles for Gozer from Slavitza Jovan and the late Paddi Edwards. Given Gozer is a deity and shapeshifting is part of its shtick, the chance in appearance/voice between films can be handwaved and justified in-universe.
  • While the Brazilian Portuguese dub managed to get most of the original cast back for the movie, the only exceptions are Ézio Ramos as Peter Venkman (Peter is instead dubbed by Hélio Ribeiro) and Isaura Gomes as Gozer (Gozer is instead dubbed by Luísa Viotti). In Ézio's case it was due to him having passed away in 1999^note he still manages to reprise the role posthumously by the movie reusing the audio track of the original movie's dub whenever stock footage of the first movie appears and in Isaura's case it was because she had retired in 2020 (she would later pass away in 2022).
  • In the European French dub of the previous movies, Peter was voiced by Bernard Murat. Because the latter retired from voice acting after the 1990's, Peter in this movie is instead voiced by Bernard Métraux. Regarding Winston, he's voiced here by Serge Faliu, replacing Med Hondo (who passed away in 2019). Lastly, Egon in the post-credits scene is voiced by Laurent Morteau instead of Jean-Pierre Leroux, due to the latter being too old to voice the younger version of Egon.^note With that said, Murat and Leroux's performances from the first movie have been recycled whenever stock footage from it appears in this movie.
• Produced by Cast Member: Dan Aykroyd reprised his role as Ray Stantz and served as an executive producer.
• Promoted Fanboy: Jason Reitman has called himself "the very first Ghostbusters fan" for years, due to his regular visits to his father during filming of the original movie where he quickly became enchanted. He also had a cameo in Ghostbusters II.
• Reality Subtext: Lots of it due to the Development Hell of Ghostbusters III and Harold Ramis' death.
  • The backstory of Egon's fallout with the rest of the Ghostbusters team parallels to the fallout between Harold Ramis and Bill Murray during Groundhog Day, which is believed to have contributed to the languished development of the third installment until this film.
  • The strained relationship Callie has with her father, Egon, is directly inspired by Jason Reitman's strained relationship with his father's work on the franchise.
• Release Date Change: It was moved from 2020 to November 2021 as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Role Reprise:
  • All members of the original Ghostbusters (minus the late Harold Ramis, of course) from the first two films reprise their roles, as do Sigourney Weaver (Dana Barrett) and Annie Potts (Janine Melnitz). The only major actor to not reprise his role from the original film was Rick Moranis (Louis Tully), who has been mostly retired.
  • The Japanese dub brought back all the living voice actors from the home video dub, being the only replacements Gozer as the character is now voiced by a Celebrity Voice Actor instead, replacing Rin Mizuhara, and Winston, who is now voiced voiced by Masashi Sugawara, replacing both Banjo Ginga from the dub of the first film and Akio Ōtsuka from the dub of the second one.^note Yoshito Yasuhara as Peter Venkman, Tesshō Genda as Ray Stanz, Shigeru Ushiyama as Egon Spengler, Shinobu Adachi as Janine Melnitz and Yui Komatsuka as Dana Barret.
  • The Brazilian Portuguese dub brings back all the living voice actors from the dub of the first two movies^note  Flavio Dias as Ray, Antônio Moreno as Winston, Jorge Barcellos as Egon, Denise Simonetto as Dana and Márcia Gomes as Janine.
  • In the European French dub, Ray, Janine, and Dana are once again voiced by Richard Darbois, Maïk Darah, and Frédérique Tirmont respectively.
• Sequel Gap: It's a sequel to Ghostbusters II, coming out 32 years after that movie, hence the line "There hasn't been a ghost sighting in 30 years."
• Throw It In!: Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd were given the right to improvise the Trash Talk they deliver to Gozer.
• Troubled Production: While the filming process was ultimately trouble-free, development and post-production due were marred by delays, not helped by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
  • As noted in the Ghostbusters (2016) entry, the idea of a Ghostbusters III was batted around for nearly three decades, with stories dating back to The '90s (buoyed by comments made by Aykroyd) about bringing on actors such as Chris Farley and Adam Sandler as new members of the team. The unused script, Hellfire, had elements transposed into Ghostbusters: The Video Game, and was treated by the surviving cast members as the closest thing to a proper third film up to that point. Plans by Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman wouldn't hit their stride until 2019, where Jason Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan wrote a script that everyone (including the notoriously gun-shy Murray, who was one of the last to sign on to the project) thought honored the history of the franchise.
  • The film ultimately completed its filming in Calgary, Alberta from July-October 2019, but the global pandemic pushed its release from July 2020 to November 2021, and along with a mixed-at-best response to what was revealed so far in promotional materials. In January 2021, a clip from the Spanish version of MasterChef Junior (!) revealing the new Ghost Muncher went viral for all the wrong reasons as fans criticized its design. Luckily, the final product (despite receiving criticism over its screenplay and apparently excessive fanservice) ultimately was a box-office success, earning nearly $200 million against a $75 million budget (half that of the 2016 film) before home media sales.
• Uncredited Role: Olivia Wilde as Gozer - credits went only to Emma Portner, who does the Destroyer's hobbled CGI form, and Shohreh Aghdashloo as its voice. This is an inverse of the original film, where Slavitza Jovan, who physically portrayed Gozer, was credited, while Paddi Edwards, who did the voice, was not.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan revealed that a version of Callie and Phoebe's argument ended with Callie breaking the P.K.E. meter, the Missing Trailer Scene of Phoebe working on something in her room is what remains. This scene was changed due to test audiences hating Callie for her actions and making her Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
  • The Terror Sentinel was originally envisioned as a separate entity from Zuul and Vinz Clotho, before being re-envisioned as an alternate form the Terror Dogs could assume.
• Word of God: In response to this film seeming to gloss over the events of Ghostbusters II, Jason Reitman said that the second movie is still canon and that it is possible to revisit Vigo in a potential sequel.
• Write What You Know: Jason Reitman didn't want to do a Ghostbusters film for years, despite being a huge fan of his father's films, due to the strained relationship between them. But then he realized he could actually channel that into the film's own story.

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