It’s been just shy of 40 years since Ivan Reitman unleashed upon the world a horror sci-fi fantasy dripping in bright green slime, and in the intervening years we've seen both a sequel and a spin-off follow in Ghostbusters____' gigantic marshmallow-caked footsteps. Now, a new entry in the canon, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, comes courtesy of the Jason Reitman, with Ivan Reitman on producer duties. The brand new issue of Empire is positively dripping with exclusive Ghostbusters content and we have not one but two new images to share with you.
The film follows youngsters Trevor (Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace, The Haunting of Hill House), who inherit a rundown farmhouse from their grandfather, alleged to be the one and only Egon Spengler. When strange things once again begin happening in their neighbourhood, Trevor, Phoebe and an extended gang of family and friends, including Paul Rudd’s Ghostbusters fanatic Mr. Grooberson, must track down their estranged gramps in the hopes of saving the world from supernatural threats.
As part of their first interview together for the film, Ivan Reitman reveals to Empire what it felt like to learn that his son was boarding the franchise.
“I was amazed that he wanted to do it,” he says. “He really had his own direction. He worked for years to establish his kind of filmmaking and his own distinctive talent, and then he wanted to jump into this, something that was so famous already.”
For Reitman Jnr. however, the decision, though daunting, also felt like part of a bigger picture.
“For me, it’s this idea of making a movie for my father, that carries on a legacy that was introduced to me when I was seven years old and was a deep part of my childhood, the way it was a part of everybody’s childhood,”
Read Empire’s full Ghostbusters: Afterlife story in the Ghostbusters Celebration issue – on newsstands from Thursday 30 September, and available to pre-order online here. Ghostbusters: Afterlife will be in UK cinemas on 19 November.