Obviously to follow SPOILERS from Ghostbusters: Legacy , but if you are here you will have understood…
In an interview published by Empire, director Jason Reitman talked about what it took to get the film’s most surprising cameo, that of Harold Ramis as Egon Spengler ‘s ghost . We have already talked about the technical side of the matter, with Bob Gunton called to take the place of Ramis on the set: for that we refer you to this article .
Here instead we will talk about the more… private matters. Reitman said:
The first person who ever read the script was my father , and after my father the Ramis family read it. That is, Harold’s widow, Erica, and daughter Violet, whom I have known since we were kids – we were both on the set of the original, in 1983. I talked to them about what I intended to do and how we were going to do it. They came to the set and saw the visual effects in the editing room. They were the first people to see the film. So they were part of the making from start to finish and I think they knew how much I wanted to honor Harold. Egon was my favorite Ghostbusters. This is the story of the Spenglers, and this film is dedicated to him in every sense.
It couldn’t just be a visual effect
Reitman adds:
So the real question was “how are we going to do it?”. Anyone who loves movies knows examples of virtual characters that work and virtual characters that can’t be watched. It is one thing to see one in the middle of a movie, where it is passing through. Another is if the entire climax of the film is based on the fact that you will believe that these two people are hugging, that a daughter is forgiving her father and saying goodbye. And that these Ghostbusters, who have been separated by a misunderstanding, are actually next to each other to catch a ghost.