Ghostbusters 3 Secretly Confirmed The Original Villain’s Return

The latest trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife has finally confirmed who the villain is – apart from the perversely adorable mini Stay Puft marshmallows – and it’s another nostalgic “treat” for franchise fans. The trailer has several big hints that Gozer the Gozerian will return after being vanquished by the original Ghostbusters crew at the end of 1984’s classic.

So far, the story for Ghostbusters: Afterlife has been a fairly well-guarded secret. Even the fact that Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, and McKenna Grace are playing Egon Spengler’s family was kept quiet until this trailer despite some strong fan speculation. That approach to marketing – which has also notably been very restrained with fan-baiting easy wins from the original movies – is inspired, when combined with the precision teases like the appearance of Ray in his Occult Book shop at the end of the trailer. It allows space for speculation, like the theory that Harold Ramis’ Egon is still going to play a part in the sequel, just as Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman would have played a ghost in an earlier Ghostbusters 3 draft.

While the movie will be its own thing and has been widely described as being a legacy movie intent on passing the torch to a new generation, nostalgia was always going to play a major part in proceedings. Even bringing in Jason Reitman to make it is a calculated play designed to ensure the sequel knows exactly where it came from. And the decision to apparently revive Gozer (played by Slavitza Jovan in the original) as hinted by the Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer rather than bringing in a new villain makes a lot of sense. And as for proof: Gozer’s hellhound Zuul appears chasing Paul Rudd out of Walmart; a huge statue fashioned in the image of the Gozerian, the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster appears prominently; the mention of Earthquakes calls back to Ray’s biblical portent of doom around Gozer’s arrival; a YouTube video title mentions Shandorians (the cultists devoted to Gozer); and most importantly, Gozer appears herself, climbing out of a portal in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.

The hints leading up to Gozer’s fleeting appearance – complete with the same sparkled leotard, spiked nails, and ostentatious flat-top haircut – would be enough to herald the arrival of a new Shandorian cult member, but that wouldn’t have been enough. Because Afterlife isn’t just seeking to bring a big villain for a new group of Ghostbusters, it’s also seeking a justification to bring the original crew back together after they’ve seemingly been split up. As another YouTube title asks “where are the Ghostbusters now?”, making it clear they’ve moved on since the events of Ghostbusters 2 and there would have to be bad blood for Egon to be in Oklahoma and Ray to be back in his Occult store across the country in New York.

Quite how Reitman’s sequel will deal with Gozer’s appearance remains to be seen. It’s now more than 35 years since Jovan played the character but the requirements of the character presumably require her to look the same age. So Ghostbusters: Afterlife could go with a de-aged version of the iconic villain alongside the newly updated CG versions of Zuul and Vinz Clortho, despite the fact that the Gozerian is a shape-shifter. Tying the villain’s image to the statue makes the original appearance seem inevitable at this stage and the whole agenda of nostalgic celebration of the original would seem to make that even more likely again.

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Simon Gallagher
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Simon is a veteran editor who has been writing online since 2010 – long before anyone wanted to read his work. He loves Clueless. Like, a lot.

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