Ghostbusters: Afterlife: Olivia Wilde’s role has finally been confirmed

If you haven’t had the chance to watch Ghostbusters: Afterlife yet and are trying to avoid SPOILERS, you should probably back up out of this article now.

That said, it’s not much of a spoiler to say that Ghostbusters: Afterlife features the return of Gozer the Gozerian, the villain from the first Ghostbusters movie (watch it it HERE). The trailers and other marketing materials made it clear that Gozer was coming back. What the filmmakers have been keeping secret, though, is the fact that this version of Gozer was played by Olivia Wilde. Some viewers did recognize Wilde in the role, but her name is not in the film’s credits and her involvement wasn’t officially confirmed – until now.

Arjen Tuiten, who was the special make-up and live action creature effects designer on Ghostbusters: Afterlife, confirmed Wilde’s involvement on Instagram, sharing a behind-the-scenes picture of her as Gozer and revealing that the process of turning her into the character took five and a half hours.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ARJEN (@_a_r_j_e_n_)

The credited actors who helped Wilde bring Gozer back to the screen were dancer/choreographer Emma Portner and Shohreh Aghdashloo, who provided the character’s voice.

Directed by Jason Reitman, who wrote the screenplay with Gil Kenan, Ghostbusters: Afterlife stars Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, and Mckenna Grace as

a family with single mom Callie and her two kids, Trevor and Phoebe, who move into a beaten-down farmhouse in Oklahoma only to discover that there’s something strange in the neighborhood. Unexplained quakes shake the town. There’s an old mine nearby that bears the name of Ivo Shandor, who built the Manhattan high-rise in the 1984 film that channeled the forces of evil.

Paul Rudd plays “a local teacher who’s been documenting the unexplained phenomena, befriending Callie and her kids, and helping make the connection between the current weirdness and the events of three decades before”. Also in the cast are Bokeem Woodbine, Tracy Letts, and Oliver Cooper, with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and Annie Potts reprising their roles from the first two films.

Reitman’s father Ivan Reitman, who directed the first two films, produced Ghostbusters: Afterlife, with Aykroyd serving as executive producer alongside Jason Blumenfeld, Michael Beugg, Aaron L. Gilbert, Jason Cloth, and Kenan.

Our own Chris Bumbray gave Ghostbusters: Afterlife an 8/10 review you can read at THIS LINK.