Jason Reitman says his dad was reduced to tears after seeing a cut of Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Ghostbusters: Afterlife apparently has the seal of approval from original Ghostbusters director, Ivan Reitman. Speaking with Empire Magazine, Afterlife director/co-writer Jason Reitman recounted how his dad was reduced to tears after seeing a cut of the upcoming movie. 

“My father hasn’t been leaving the house much because of COVID,” he said. “But he took a test, put on a mask and drove down to the Sony lot to watch the movie with the studio. And after, he cried, and he said, ‘I’m so proud to be your father.’ And it was one of the great moments of my life.”

Unlike Paul Feig's 2016 reboot, Afterlife serves as sequel/soft reboot to 1989's Ghostbusters II. The script by Reitman and Gil Kenan (Monster House) follows a single mother (played by Carrie Coon) and her two children (Finn Wolfhard and Mckenna Grace) as they relocate to a small town in Oklohoma. It's been heavily implied that the kids are the grandchildren of Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis) and will use the inventor's ghost-fighting goodies (Proton Packs, a new Ecto-1, the works!) when malicious spirits are awakened. While he wanted to capture the humor and wit of the originals, Reitman also wanted to make his contribution to the Ghostbusters mythos genuinely frightening.

“The feeling that I’ve kind of held onto is that while it is very funny, it really scared me. It was really my first experience with a horror film,” the filmmaker continued during his interview with Empire. “I was at a Directors Guild meeting and I happened to be sitting next to Steven Spielberg – when I told him I was working on Ghostbusters, he out of nowhere said, ‘Library Ghost – Top Ten scares of all time.’ And it’s true.”

Check out a new production still in the tweet below:

Most of the original cast members are coming back for this movie, although it's unclear how big their roles will be. If we're being totally honest with ourselves, we know deep down that they'll just be glorified cameos, but that's better than nothing, right? Bill Murray ("Peter Venkman"), Dan Aykroyd ("Ray Stantz"), Ernie Hudson ("Winston Zeddemore"), Sigourney Weaver ("Dana Barrett"), and Annie Potts ("Janine Melnitz") are all confirmed to return, but we're holding out hope for a top secret appearance from Rick Moranis as Louis Tully. That would be epic!

"It feeds beautifully into the first two stories and hands it off to a new generation," Aykroyd teased in 2019. Paul Rudd and Bokeem Woodbine are among the franchise's newcomers. Right now, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is slated to hit theaters sometime this summer.

It was originally supposed to open last summer, but was delayed to March 2021 as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Sony postponed the release a second time when it became clear that the health crisis wasn't going anywhere. The studio recently did the same with Morbius, which was pushed out of its March 19 release and moved to fall 2021. While several COVID-19 vaccines are now in play, the inoculation process in the U.S. is moving at a veritable snail's pace. Hopefully, things are slightly back to normal by the summer because Afterlife certainly has the potential to be a major box office success (as well as the start of a new series), given the proper conditions.