Sony breaks down 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' Easter eggs you may have missed on the first go-around

With Ghostbusters: Afterlife on the verge of haunting physical home video next month, Sony Pictures released a breezy breakdown of Easter eggs you might have missed on your first viewing of the film (we definitely missed a few of these in our own overview!).

Sure, there's the obvious stuff like the dilapidated sign for the Shandor Mining Company, but then you've got a bunch of obscure items of note like a license plate whose letters and numbers serve as an anagram for "Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters 1984." Or what about Phoebe's purple shirt? Did you pick up on the fact that it's printed with the symbols on Peter Venkman's ESP cards in the first film?

"If you are a Ghostbusters fan, you’re about to go on the greatest Easter egg hunt of your life," director and co-writer Jason Reitman (son of original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman) said in a special message that preceded our advance press screening of the film. Only now do we truly understand what he meant by that.

Check out the full breakdown below:

Co-written by Reitman and Gil Kenan (Monster House), Afterlife picks up more than three decades after the events of Ghostbusters. Its story follows Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), the grandchildren of Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis), who move to a sleepy Oklahoma town with their mother, Callie (Carrie Coon). While exploring the remnants of their grandfather's rundown farmhouse, the young protagonists discover the old gear — a P.K.E. Meter, Ecto-1, and a bunch of Proton Packs — which are ultimately used in a battle to defeat Gozer once and for all.

"My whole life, I was asked, ‘Would you make a Ghostbusters movie?’ And I made the incorrect, egotistical assumption that people want to see my Ghostbusters movie when the truth is, what we all want to see is a Ghostbusters movie," Jason said at a limited New York Comic Con panel attended by SYFY WIRE (the event culminated in the exclusive Afterlife world premiere). "We wanted to get back in the Ecto-1 again. We wanted to pick up the Proton Pack again. And that’s where it came from."

Now available on digital platforms, Ghostbusters: Afterlife arrives on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Tuesday, Feb. 1. The film amassed just over $191 million at the global box office during its theatrical run. That's less than the original two Ghostbusters movies made during their lifetimes grosses and the same applies to Paul Feige's 2016 reboot. Not totally unexpected in the age of COVID-19.