Confirmed: Bill Murray to Reprise Role of Peter Venkman on #Ghostbusters: Afterlife | #GhostbustersAfterlife | #GB20
In an exclusive article, Vanity Fair has confirmed that Bill Murray will be back as Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters: Afterlife! The article centers around the author’s time on set, with Bill Murray making him wear one of the “heavy” proton packs. Seriously, it’s a must read!
In addition to the confirmation of Murray, a handful of new images from the set of Ghostbusters: Afterlife also went live!
Logan Kim and Mckenna Grace get in on the action; Director Jason Reitman (seen here with Grace) is directing the latest installment in a franchise launched by his father, Ivan. TOP, COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT; BOTTOM, BY KIMBERLY FRENCH.
Local teacher Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd) inspects a map of the town with Callie (Carrie Coon), who inherited her late father’s home. BY KIMBERLY FRENCH.
In addition to the article, Vanity Fair author Anthony Breznican updated his Twitter profile image, showcasing himself wearing a proton pack on the set of Afterlife:
From Vanity Fair:
Exclusive: Hanging With Bill Murray on the Set of Ghostbusters: Afterlife
The original cast passes the proton pack to a new generation in Jason Reitman’s upcoming movie.
I didn’t even have to use the "magic word." It was Bill Murray’s idea for me to try on a proton pack.
In the middle of an interview on a busy soundstage during shooting last September, Murray signaled to one of the prop masters. “You think you can do me a favor?” he said. “Can you get the heavy pack? And put it on Anthony? Let him wear it for a while. I don’t think he understands exactly what it’s like.”
There was a pause. “Seriously?” asked prop master Ben Eadie, the Ghostbusters’ armorer.
“Yeah,” Murray said. “Seriously.”
Out of respect for spoilers, I can’t tell you what was happening around us or even who else was in the scene. But I can tell you we were in Canada on the set of this summer's upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Murray, just days before celebrating his 69th birthday, was determined to show a visiting journalist that bustin’ doesn’t always make you feel good.
“When you put that gear on, it’s so uncomfortable. It’s so heavy, just to stand there with that weight on your back, tilting your spine,” he said, rolling his eyes at the memory from 36 years ago. “And we wore them for a long time.”
That’s something he especially liked about the new movie, directed and cowritten by Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Juno). Newcomers are shouldering the movie this time.
Ever since the new project was announced a year ago, fans have wondered if the stars of the earlier films would return, and tidbits of news have been leaking out sideways. Murray was definitely on the set at various times during that week last fall, as were Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson, reprising their respective roles as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore. Also visiting the location during those days were Annie Potts the long-suffering receptionist Janine Melnitz and Sigourney Weaver who played frequent malevolence magnet Dana Barrett. (Rick Moranis, who was accountant Louis Tully in the original, has largely withdrawn from performing over the past 20 years and did not return.)
Exactly how the originals will figure into the July 10 release will be left for the film to reveal, along with how the narrative deals with the absence of Egon Spengler since actor Harold Ramis, who cowrote the original movie with Aykroyd, died in 2014. “Well, we are a man down. That’s the deal,” Murray said, pursing his lips, looking down. “And that’s the story that we’re telling, that’s the story they’ve written.”
The original Ghostbusters actors—or OGBs, as they were known to the crew—all dropped by the Calgary set of Afterlife over the span of a week to shoot their parts. Each has a meaningful role in the movie, but they won’t be the central heroes this time.
Instead, the film focuses primarily on a family we haven’t met before: single mom Callie (The Leftovers’ Carrie Coon) and her two kids, Trevor and Phoebe (Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard and Captain Marvel’s Mckenna Grace), who move into a beaten-down farmhouse in Oklahoma only to discover—as the Ray Parker Jr. theme song long ago prophesied—that there’s something strange in the neighborhood. Unexplained quakes shake the town. There’s an old mine nearby that bears the name of Ivo Shandor, who built the Manhattan high-rise in the 1984 film that channeled the forces of evil. Paul Rudd costars as a local teacher who’s been documenting the unexplained phenomena, befriending Callie and her kids and helping make the connection between the current weirdness and the events of three decades before. The new movie picks up 36 years after the marshmallow-drenched near-apocalypse that’s known in Ghostbusters lore as the “Manhattan crossrip.”
Reitman doesn’t want to explicitly confirm the new characters’ ties to the original story, but fans have noticed the uncanny resemblance between cockatoo-haired Phoebe and a certain stoic scientist whose spectacles she discovers in the home amid some dusty old jumpsuits, one of them bearing the name Spengler.
“Before I ever thought I could make a Ghostbusters film, the image of a 12-year-old girl carrying a proton pack popped into my head and just wouldn’t leave. Eventually, I knew who she was,” Reitman said. “I’m floored by the idea of what it would be like to find a proton pack in your grandparents’ basement. What would that discovery reveal about who you are and what adventures you’re about to go on?”
While Murray is eager to hand off the proton packs, the 1984 Ghostbusters actors are hanging on to their original identities. They all appeared in cameos in the 2016 all-female reboot, but because that film existed in its own cinematic universe they played new characters unrelated to their earlier performances. This will be the first time they’re back as the classic characters since 1989’s Ghostbusters II.
There’s something symbolic about sharing the blaster. Thematically, the new story advances the message that anyone can be a Ghostbuster, a unifying idea to counter the backlash unleashed on the 2016 reboot, when some male fans attacked the all-female concept sight unseen, sometimes to the point of harassing the cast on social media. Although that film underperformed at the box office relative to its large budget, 2016’s Ghostbusters established a new branch of fandom among many girls and women, who may be reassured to know they’ll be represented here too, with lead characters who are a tough mom and her science-obsessed young daughter.
Among the challenges the movie faces is worrying signs of weakness in the nostalgia market. The recent big-screen update of the ’70s-era TV series Charlie’s Angels disappointed at the box office, as did The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep and the latest Terminator film, which brought back both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Can you get the heavy pack?” Murray asked one of the prop masters. “And put it on Anthony? I don’t think he understands exactly what it’s like.”
Reitman never talks about box office prospects. He focuses, like a lot of Ghostbusters fans, on what this meant to his childhood. As the story of Ghostbusters passes to a new generation of characters, so have the storytelling duties. Reitman is the son of Ivan Reitman, who directed the original two films and returns on Afterlife as a producer. Jason Reitman cowrote the new script with Monster House filmmaker Gil Kenan, who previously worked with Murray on 2008’s City of Ember and is currently directing the 2020 holiday movie A Boy Called Christmas.
“If I think about who I’m making this movie for, it’s my father,” the younger Reitman said. “We all know what it’s like to be told stories by our parents. I’m really honored to get a chance to tell one back to him from the world he brought to life.”
Reitman was maybe the first Ghostbusters obsessive, decorating his childhood bedroom with a calcified chunk of the Stay Puft marshmallow man purloined from the New York set and talking about terror dogs before any of his friends even knew what they were. He wants to do the best he can with something he loves. Something a lot of people love. He’s eager to introduce moviegoers to the new characters, even though he knows many are curious about the older ones. The model scenario is The Force Awakens, which created a new world of Star Wars characters while threading through icons from the original trilogy.
Murray’s participation in Afterlife was always a looming question mark for fans as well as the filmmakers. He is notoriously enigmatic. Hard to locate, easy to lose. Murray has known Reitman since the Oscar-nominated director was a kid doing cameos on his dad’s movies, and he has fond memories of working with Kenan a decade ago. So he agreed to read the script last spring. Then everyone waited for an answer. “The script is good. It’s got lots of emotion in it. It’s got lots of family in it, with through lines that are really interesting,” Murray told me. “It’s gonna work.”
As much as Murray complained about the weight of the proton packs, he tried his best to sell the upsides of wearing one as the prop crew hoisted the pack over my shoulders and buckled it around my waist. “You can work the lights and stuff,” he said, showing me the controls. “Have some fun. Get your picture taken doing it.”
The production uses lightweight, less detailed packs for stunts and distant shots, but I was saddled with the 30-pound heavy-duty version used for close-ups, which is loaded with batteries and rumble motors to make the blasters shudder and jolt in the hands of the user.
“I think you should wear it for just an hour. Just one hour,” said Murray.
The director noticed what was going on. The cluster of workers parted as Reitman approached us, calling out, “Hold on! Hold on!” He swiped his phone to the stopwatch app, then pressed the Start button. “Timer!” he said, waving it before the crew.
Later, Reitman said he hopes the film will help fans feel the excitement of suiting up themselves: “I wanted to make a movie about finding a proton pack in an old barn and the thrill of actually putting it on for the first time. I’ve had friends come to the set and hoist on the packs, and it always turns grown-ups into children.”
Murray just stood by nodding and smiling. “You’ll see what it feels like,” he said.
“The first 30 seconds are okay,” I told him.
The actor snorted. “It’s that last 30,” he said, shaking his head. “And the dismount.”
I retreated to a nearby bank of video monitors as he went before the cameras to shoot his scene. Between takes, Murray drifted back to check on his new cadet. “You’re not sitting down over there, are you?” he called out. “No leaning!”
In all honesty, I was trying to stand with my back near walls and corners. Murray is right about the pack getting heavier as time goes on, partly because it extends back so far and gravity exploits the leverage. The width and depth also make it easy to accidentally knock into a script supervisor or sweep a tabletop clear. (The flowers are not still standing!)
After a few more takes, Murray returned to assess my progress. “Your posture is already a little different than it was 20 minutes ago,” he said, looking satisfied.
The work moved quickly, and Reitman wrapped the scene before the hour was even over. Murray left to catch the rest of the Cubs game on TV, but I assured him I’d keep wearing the proton pack for the duration, as promised.
“All right,” he said, looking me up and down.
Then my very own Bill Murray story concluded with the only lie of our conversation.
“If you need any more,” he said, “you’ll know where to find me.”
###
Original source: https://ghostbustersnews.com/2020/01/23/hes-back-bill-murray-officially-confirmed-for-ghostbusters-afterlife-new-set-photos-more/
In addition to the confirmation of Murray, a handful of new images from the set of Ghostbusters: Afterlife also went live!
Logan Kim and Mckenna Grace get in on the action; Director Jason Reitman (seen here with Grace) is directing the latest installment in a franchise launched by his father, Ivan. TOP, COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT; BOTTOM, BY KIMBERLY FRENCH.
Local teacher Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd) inspects a map of the town with Callie (Carrie Coon), who inherited her late father’s home. BY KIMBERLY FRENCH.
In addition to the article, Vanity Fair author Anthony Breznican updated his Twitter profile image, showcasing himself wearing a proton pack on the set of Afterlife:
From Vanity Fair:
Exclusive: Hanging With Bill Murray on the Set of Ghostbusters: Afterlife
The original cast passes the proton pack to a new generation in Jason Reitman’s upcoming movie.
I didn’t even have to use the "magic word." It was Bill Murray’s idea for me to try on a proton pack.
In the middle of an interview on a busy soundstage during shooting last September, Murray signaled to one of the prop masters. “You think you can do me a favor?” he said. “Can you get the heavy pack? And put it on Anthony? Let him wear it for a while. I don’t think he understands exactly what it’s like.”
There was a pause. “Seriously?” asked prop master Ben Eadie, the Ghostbusters’ armorer.
“Yeah,” Murray said. “Seriously.”
Out of respect for spoilers, I can’t tell you what was happening around us or even who else was in the scene. But I can tell you we were in Canada on the set of this summer's upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Murray, just days before celebrating his 69th birthday, was determined to show a visiting journalist that bustin’ doesn’t always make you feel good.
“When you put that gear on, it’s so uncomfortable. It’s so heavy, just to stand there with that weight on your back, tilting your spine,” he said, rolling his eyes at the memory from 36 years ago. “And we wore them for a long time.”
That’s something he especially liked about the new movie, directed and cowritten by Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Juno). Newcomers are shouldering the movie this time.
Ever since the new project was announced a year ago, fans have wondered if the stars of the earlier films would return, and tidbits of news have been leaking out sideways. Murray was definitely on the set at various times during that week last fall, as were Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson, reprising their respective roles as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore. Also visiting the location during those days were Annie Potts the long-suffering receptionist Janine Melnitz and Sigourney Weaver who played frequent malevolence magnet Dana Barrett. (Rick Moranis, who was accountant Louis Tully in the original, has largely withdrawn from performing over the past 20 years and did not return.)
Exactly how the originals will figure into the July 10 release will be left for the film to reveal, along with how the narrative deals with the absence of Egon Spengler since actor Harold Ramis, who cowrote the original movie with Aykroyd, died in 2014. “Well, we are a man down. That’s the deal,” Murray said, pursing his lips, looking down. “And that’s the story that we’re telling, that’s the story they’ve written.”
The original Ghostbusters actors—or OGBs, as they were known to the crew—all dropped by the Calgary set of Afterlife over the span of a week to shoot their parts. Each has a meaningful role in the movie, but they won’t be the central heroes this time.
Instead, the film focuses primarily on a family we haven’t met before: single mom Callie (The Leftovers’ Carrie Coon) and her two kids, Trevor and Phoebe (Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard and Captain Marvel’s Mckenna Grace), who move into a beaten-down farmhouse in Oklahoma only to discover—as the Ray Parker Jr. theme song long ago prophesied—that there’s something strange in the neighborhood. Unexplained quakes shake the town. There’s an old mine nearby that bears the name of Ivo Shandor, who built the Manhattan high-rise in the 1984 film that channeled the forces of evil. Paul Rudd costars as a local teacher who’s been documenting the unexplained phenomena, befriending Callie and her kids and helping make the connection between the current weirdness and the events of three decades before. The new movie picks up 36 years after the marshmallow-drenched near-apocalypse that’s known in Ghostbusters lore as the “Manhattan crossrip.”
Reitman doesn’t want to explicitly confirm the new characters’ ties to the original story, but fans have noticed the uncanny resemblance between cockatoo-haired Phoebe and a certain stoic scientist whose spectacles she discovers in the home amid some dusty old jumpsuits, one of them bearing the name Spengler.
“Before I ever thought I could make a Ghostbusters film, the image of a 12-year-old girl carrying a proton pack popped into my head and just wouldn’t leave. Eventually, I knew who she was,” Reitman said. “I’m floored by the idea of what it would be like to find a proton pack in your grandparents’ basement. What would that discovery reveal about who you are and what adventures you’re about to go on?”
While Murray is eager to hand off the proton packs, the 1984 Ghostbusters actors are hanging on to their original identities. They all appeared in cameos in the 2016 all-female reboot, but because that film existed in its own cinematic universe they played new characters unrelated to their earlier performances. This will be the first time they’re back as the classic characters since 1989’s Ghostbusters II.
There’s something symbolic about sharing the blaster. Thematically, the new story advances the message that anyone can be a Ghostbuster, a unifying idea to counter the backlash unleashed on the 2016 reboot, when some male fans attacked the all-female concept sight unseen, sometimes to the point of harassing the cast on social media. Although that film underperformed at the box office relative to its large budget, 2016’s Ghostbusters established a new branch of fandom among many girls and women, who may be reassured to know they’ll be represented here too, with lead characters who are a tough mom and her science-obsessed young daughter.
Among the challenges the movie faces is worrying signs of weakness in the nostalgia market. The recent big-screen update of the ’70s-era TV series Charlie’s Angels disappointed at the box office, as did The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep and the latest Terminator film, which brought back both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Can you get the heavy pack?” Murray asked one of the prop masters. “And put it on Anthony? I don’t think he understands exactly what it’s like.”
Reitman never talks about box office prospects. He focuses, like a lot of Ghostbusters fans, on what this meant to his childhood. As the story of Ghostbusters passes to a new generation of characters, so have the storytelling duties. Reitman is the son of Ivan Reitman, who directed the original two films and returns on Afterlife as a producer. Jason Reitman cowrote the new script with Monster House filmmaker Gil Kenan, who previously worked with Murray on 2008’s City of Ember and is currently directing the 2020 holiday movie A Boy Called Christmas.
“If I think about who I’m making this movie for, it’s my father,” the younger Reitman said. “We all know what it’s like to be told stories by our parents. I’m really honored to get a chance to tell one back to him from the world he brought to life.”
Reitman was maybe the first Ghostbusters obsessive, decorating his childhood bedroom with a calcified chunk of the Stay Puft marshmallow man purloined from the New York set and talking about terror dogs before any of his friends even knew what they were. He wants to do the best he can with something he loves. Something a lot of people love. He’s eager to introduce moviegoers to the new characters, even though he knows many are curious about the older ones. The model scenario is The Force Awakens, which created a new world of Star Wars characters while threading through icons from the original trilogy.
Murray’s participation in Afterlife was always a looming question mark for fans as well as the filmmakers. He is notoriously enigmatic. Hard to locate, easy to lose. Murray has known Reitman since the Oscar-nominated director was a kid doing cameos on his dad’s movies, and he has fond memories of working with Kenan a decade ago. So he agreed to read the script last spring. Then everyone waited for an answer. “The script is good. It’s got lots of emotion in it. It’s got lots of family in it, with through lines that are really interesting,” Murray told me. “It’s gonna work.”
As much as Murray complained about the weight of the proton packs, he tried his best to sell the upsides of wearing one as the prop crew hoisted the pack over my shoulders and buckled it around my waist. “You can work the lights and stuff,” he said, showing me the controls. “Have some fun. Get your picture taken doing it.”
The production uses lightweight, less detailed packs for stunts and distant shots, but I was saddled with the 30-pound heavy-duty version used for close-ups, which is loaded with batteries and rumble motors to make the blasters shudder and jolt in the hands of the user.
“I think you should wear it for just an hour. Just one hour,” said Murray.
The director noticed what was going on. The cluster of workers parted as Reitman approached us, calling out, “Hold on! Hold on!” He swiped his phone to the stopwatch app, then pressed the Start button. “Timer!” he said, waving it before the crew.
Later, Reitman said he hopes the film will help fans feel the excitement of suiting up themselves: “I wanted to make a movie about finding a proton pack in an old barn and the thrill of actually putting it on for the first time. I’ve had friends come to the set and hoist on the packs, and it always turns grown-ups into children.”
Murray just stood by nodding and smiling. “You’ll see what it feels like,” he said.
“The first 30 seconds are okay,” I told him.
The actor snorted. “It’s that last 30,” he said, shaking his head. “And the dismount.”
I retreated to a nearby bank of video monitors as he went before the cameras to shoot his scene. Between takes, Murray drifted back to check on his new cadet. “You’re not sitting down over there, are you?” he called out. “No leaning!”
In all honesty, I was trying to stand with my back near walls and corners. Murray is right about the pack getting heavier as time goes on, partly because it extends back so far and gravity exploits the leverage. The width and depth also make it easy to accidentally knock into a script supervisor or sweep a tabletop clear. (The flowers are not still standing!)
After a few more takes, Murray returned to assess my progress. “Your posture is already a little different than it was 20 minutes ago,” he said, looking satisfied.
The work moved quickly, and Reitman wrapped the scene before the hour was even over. Murray left to catch the rest of the Cubs game on TV, but I assured him I’d keep wearing the proton pack for the duration, as promised.
“All right,” he said, looking me up and down.
Then my very own Bill Murray story concluded with the only lie of our conversation.
“If you need any more,” he said, “you’ll know where to find me.”
###
Original source: https://ghostbustersnews.com/2020/01/23/hes-back-bill-murray-officially-confirmed-for-ghostbusters-afterlife-new-set-photos-more/
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