Ghostbusters: Afterlife Will End with a Dedication to Harold Ramis

With Empire Magazine’s November issue feature on Ghostbusters: Afterlife, more importantly, the interview conducted with director Jason Reitman and producer Ivan Reitman, some additional details about the film have come to light.

Harold Ramis tribute as seen in Ghostbusters (2016).

In a bit of news that shouldn’t surprise anyone, the article confirmed that Afterlife would feature an on-screen dedication to the late Harold Ramis, who not only portrayed Dr. Egon Spengler in the first two Ghostbusters films but was a co-writer.

Empire directly asked Jason, “Afterlife ends with a dedication to Harold Ramis. Why was that important to you?” with Reitman answering:

This movie is for my father, for my daughter and for Harold. For me, that’s it. For a long time, I had the idea of a girl finding a proton pack in a barn, walking outside and firing it into a row of corn and popcorn flew out. And I just didn’t know what to do with it. When Harold passed all of a sudden (in 2014), I knew who she was: it was Egon’s granddaughter. The concept of this intergenerational conversation between her and her grandfather become the real roots of what this story was. It became a Spengler story.

Producer of Ghostbusters: Afterlife and director of the first two films, Ivan Reitman, also shared his memories of Harold, saying:

I always thought of him as my smarter brother. He was just very reasonable, very clever. And he had a way of writing dialogue quickly and with such dexterity, I was just so impressed with him. When he wasn’t around to help me on a film, I really felt handicapped. I got to work with him on the first four or five movies that I ended up directing, and we became good, good friends. I think we spoke directly to each other in a very lovely way.

Since Ramis’ passing in 2014, several pieces of Ghostbusters media have included dedications to the actor. Some include Paul Feig’s 2016 reboot that showcased a “For Harold” graphic at the film’s end, as well, the 2019 remaster of Ghostbusters: The Video Game that added the text “In loving memory of Harold Ramis” to the game’s intro sequence.


Harold Ramis tribute as seen in Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered (2019).

The November issue of Empire Magazine is on newsstands now.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife arrives exclusively in theatres on November 19th, 2021.

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