Having blown past initial projections, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is on course to debut well ahead of estimates at the box office with an opening weekend in excess of $40 million, with fans finally getting the chance to see the sequel they’ve been waiting for since 1989, never mind one that was subsequently delayed by almost a year and a half due to the pandemic.
It’s fan service and nostalgia writ large, and while that’s exactly what some people wanted, the supernatural blockbuster hasn’t been winning unanimous praise. The Rotten Tomatoes critical rating is currently trailing behind the 2016 reboot, which some folks actually prefer, and it’s causing no shortage of debate on social media.
One of the minor changes made in the movie that isn’t addressed directly is the updated logo of the Ghostbusters, with director Jason Reitman returning to the original look by discarding the updated version scene in Ghostbusters II. In an interview with Uproxx, the filmmaker teased that the unexplained alteration might be explored in the next installment.
“I wish I could talk to you about that. I’m just saying that’s a plot that is not in this film and we have ideas moving forward. Ghostbusters II, definitely canon. There are references to Ghostbusters II in Afterlife. We meet Ray working at Ray’s Occult. The toaster from Ghostbusters II is in the kitchen in the farmhouse. There’s actually lots of lost of Ghostbusters II details but nobody knows Ghostbusters II outside of Vigo the Carpathian and the Ghostbusters II logo. So there’s this assumption that it is not canon but it is definitely canon.”
Having finally taken the plunge and followed in his father’s footsteps to helm Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Reitman Jr. has already been hinting at an entire shared universe with a number of different talents tackling projects set in the same world after finally making the film he’d been resisting his entire career.