One of the more peculiar choices in last year’s disappointing Ghostbusters reboot/remake was seeing the familiar actors from the original movies in cameo roles as different characters. Were fans really hankering to see Bill Murray return to the franchise as Martin Heiss, or Dan Ackroyd popping up as a random taxi driver? No. We want Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Winston Zeddemore. We’d love Egon Spengler too, but.. well, Harold Ramis is dead. So that’s out, right?
Apparently not. We live in an age of wonders where CGI technology can recreate actors and drag Ramis from the grave for one last ghostbustin’ runaround. It sounds a bit tasteless, yet it’s precisely this that was teased by Ivan Reitman during the franchise’s Comic-Con panel.
In response to a question from an audience member asking whether the next film could use CG to recreate the original cast, Reitman replied:
“It’s possible. It’s something we’re thinking of. HINT”
But they surely they wouldn’t actually do it, would they? Considering the respect that pillars of the franchise like Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd have for their deceased friend, it seems extremely unlikely that they’d be willing to mime along to an invisible computer generated puppet of him.
My money is on the technology being used in some kind of flashback sequence. Reitman has previously teased fans with the idea of films based on the Ghostbuster franchises being set up around the world, with the original cast acting as Ghostbuster advisors to a newer generation. Perhaps at the start of one of these films we could get a brief trip back to life immediately after Ghostbusters II, with the cast taking a sip from the digital fountain of youth in much the same way as Robert Downey Jr. did in Captain America: Civil War.
Only time will tell where the Ghostbusters franchise goes next (though we did get some hints earlier today), and whether poor old Harold Ramis will be allowed to rest in peace. After all, this is a series about ghost busting, not ghost creating. Do you think it’s right to bring him back, though? Let us know in the comments section
