WithGhostbusters: Afterlifenow playing in theaters in, I recently got to speak withGil Kenanabout co-writing theGhostbusterssequel with directorJason Reitman. During the interview, Kenan talked about his long history with the franchise and why working on the project meant so much to him, how they were left alone by the studio to craft the story and film, the challenge of making a film for both long-time fans and people that didn’t know what a Ghostbuster was, why he always respects the audiences intelligence, what it was like sending the script toBill Murray,DanAykroyd, andErnie Hudson,Mckenna Grace’sfantastic performance, and more.
As you’ve seen in the trailers,Ghostbusters: Afterlifeis the sequel to 1984’sGhostbustersand 1989’sGhostbusters II, as the film follows a mother (Carrie Coon) and her two kids (McKenna Grace,Finn Wolfhard) who move to Oklahoma, where the kids discover their grandfather’s past with the original Ghostbusters team. In addition to Coon, Grace, and Wolfhard,the filmalso starsPaul Rudd,Logan Kim,Celeste O’Connor, andTracyLetts. Also returning to the franchise areSigourneyWeaver,andAnnie Potts.
Check out what Gil Kenan had to say below.
COLLIDER: Let me start with congratulations on the movie.
GIL KENAN: Thanks.
If you could get the financing to make anything you want, what would you make and why?
KENAN: Oh, well, I’ve got a couple of scripts I love that are sitting around waiting to come together. I would go to those first, because they’re stories I just feel passionately about. One is about a guy who never stopped growing. Now he is like 18-feet tall. I wrote a homemade flying machine story that I love. Both of those are ready to go. So if I could get those into screens, I’ll feel like I can clear up some space in my brain. But beyond that, I don’t know. I just love stories. I love movies. I feel like it’s weird. One of the secrets that I’ve learned to protect myself as a filmmaker is to be looking forward as much as possible, which is funny to say, because we’re talking about aGhostbustersfilm, that’s a direct sequel to something from 1984.
But really, the survival mechanism for writing this and for trying to make a story that lives up to the imagination of the fans who have been living with this in their life for 37 years, is to be aware of what was important in the past, but also to find ways to make this relevant and current in the present and future. I think that’s really my … That’s the feather in my trunk that helps me keep moving.
RELATED:‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ Director Jason Reitman on the Many Easter Eggs and What He’d Love to See in a ‘Ghostbusters’ Theme Park Ride
Jason told me that he told you hisGhostbustersidea, and then you gave him feedback, and you started working together. I know thatGhostbustersmeans a lot to you. What has it been like working on this franchise?
KENAN: It’s been insane. It’s been the fulfillment of very long road of movie-loving and then movie-making.Ghostbusterswas a formative experience for me in a movie theater, as you can imagine, the sorts of stories I got excited about. I was seven years old. We just moved to America, the summer of 1984. I sawGhostbustersas the first big Hollywood movie that I saw as a new transplant to this country. And it was a formative experience.
Writing with Jason is something I’ve been doing for a while now. We’ve been best friends and sort of story collaborators for a chunk of time. But the experience of now stepping onto this hallowed ground was terrifying and exhilarating. There were so many things about this that made it a joyous experience. We really got to write and make this in a kind of vacuum. This was not a cynical studio exercise. This was something that we brought to them. We were left alone to craft a story. They weren’t pressuring us until we thought it was ready to start making this thing. So it just like a really once in a lifetime experience
From when you guys started writing, to what people see on the screen, how much changed along the way? Did you have a bunch of other ideas that almost were in the movie?
KENAN: First of all, time is going to be our enemy with answering this question, because some of it is now years back. But what I’ll say is that this is as close to a first draft on the screen. It’s not obviously. But the passion that we had in sitting down to write this thing is almost unfiltered to what you see in the finished film. And that’s a rare experience in this game. It’s part of why I think the movie works when it does, because it’s done with purpose and intention. We wrote this with a lot of love, both for character and for world, but also for what this movie is about, what the theme is, which is so weird and personal and small.
It’s a story about family, the way to family destiny, and whether you choose to try to outrun it, or turn around and face it down and take it on, all the good and the bad that comes with it. It’s a pretty small and pure idea to animate such a large canvas, sci-fi horror comedy, adventure film. I think it’s part of the trick to why we were able to make something that when it does connect with an audience, is not just a fun shared audience experience, but it’s also hopefully a meaningful one.
If it wasn’t calledAfterlife, what would you have liked it to have been called?
KENAN: I loved our working title, which was sort of one we came up with, just for it to be under the radar. Because we wrote this totally in secret for a year. Even in pre-production, there were remarkable few stories about this coming together, because we were able to call itRust Cityfor almost two years, well into the editing of the film actually. So I lovedRust City. It’s not the most commercial title, but it was a way to declare boldly, this is not your grandfather’s New York City, glitz and glamorGhostbustersfilm. This is one that takes the idea and deconstructs it a little bit and puts it back together.
I also think thatRust City’sa cool title, but yeah, it might not have worked. One of the things you guys have to do with this film, and I think you do it so well, is you need to make a movie for people that don’t know what Ghostbusters are…people that have never seen the movie. But also, you need to appeal to fans of the originalGhostbustersand you have to thread that needle, which is really hard to do.
KENAN: Yeah. One of the decisions that quickly led us to this multi-generational story, aside from being dads to daughters. Each of us has one daughter who would’ve been Phoebe’s age if the film had come out on schedule. By choosing young protagonists, it meant that we could take a lot of the perceived sort of wisdom about what is ghost-busting, what the tools are, what the mythology is and make those things feel like hidden history. So that as the pieces of the puzzle start to come into shape in front of our young heroes, they are learning it for the first time, just like a new young audience.
But the longtime fans like ourselves, are seeing these things in a totally different set of goggles. They’re seeing it through their deeply ingrained experience with this story. By doing that, hopefully it works on two levels. It allows our heroes and the new audience to come up to speed and allows the longtime fan to have the satisfaction of watching the pieces click into place onscreen.
RELATED:‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ Stars Celeste O’Connor and Logan Kim Reveal Their Toughest Sequence to Film
One of the other things about the script is that treats kids like they’re smart. It does remind me of like those eighties Amblin movies, and you’re not talking down to them.
KENAN: Well, this is something that’s actually been as close to the mission statement in my filmography as you could hope for. I just remember so clearly as a film-goer, when I was a kid, the dual experiences of being either pandered and spoken down to and feeling so resentful of those films. And then on the other side of the coin, the films that were respectful of both my intelligence and my ability as an audience member to grasp the full sweep of human experience, whether that is death, or melancholy, or loneliness, anxiety, fear. So those are really important elements for me that I’ve been really careful to work into any script that I work on with, with young heroes. And I know Jason feels the same way.
How nervous were you when you guys sent the script off to the original cast and Bill and Dan and Ernie are going to read it?
KENAN: I mean, it’s terrifying. We were so aware that we had to deliver for them something that didn’t create grandeur about their return. Because at the end of the day, ghost-busting is a pretty casual affair. They’re trained scientists, but the ghost-busting is something that they sort had to learn on the go. We were so aware that they were going to be the ultimate audience for this screenplay, not for the film. The ultimate audience for the film are the fans. But we had to treat them with respect, but not reverence. We had to carry their story forward in a way that felt as casual and grounded as their characters would’ve demanded in 1984 or 1989, but still plausible to account for absence that’s been 30 plus years in the making.
So when we sent it to them, it was nerve-wracking, but the feedback was uniformly enthusiastic. I think for all of them,Ghostbusterswas such an important milestone in their lives and careers that they saw that we treated this story and their characters with love and respect. And I think that they were game because they felt like our hearts were in the right place.
Well, the other thing was Bill Murray’s kind of selective with what he does. Who knows if he would be willing to come back?
KENAN: As you know, I’ve had the good fortune of working with Bill before. He’s been super kind and my best friend over the years. I had hunch that with his love for ghost-busting, his love for the Reitman family and our friendship that he would at least give us the time of day. And he did. And I couldn’t be happier.
I definitely want to touch on Mckenna Grace, because being honest, she steals the movie. Can you sort of talk about watching, or just her performance in the film and what surprised you?
KENAN: Yeah, I mean, Mckenna’s one in a million. I mean, she’s an exceptional performer. I remember when Jason first saw her audition tape, he immediately texted it to me. I think I was in Finland, scouting or something, when the additions were happening. So it was just inevitable.
You watch her, and she had such depth. She has so much intelligence, so much emotional depth, that you watch her, and you just can’t believe that this package is coming in such a young, such a joyful, charming package. And that she’s still a kid. It’s not a case of someone, where it feels like they’re 12 going on 40. She’s very much a young person. She’s now a teenager, but she’s a teenager who is her age. She’s just gifted with an extraordinary deep well, and you see that on screen.
How involved were you in the actual editing of the movie?
KENAN: Well, I mean, Jason and I, our partnership extends beyond just writing. As it happened, I was almost neck-and-neck with the editing of my other film in England. So I would come out, I watched the assembly, watch the rough cut and everything in between and obviously give notes, but this was Jason’s baby. I knew I was in good hands from the beginning.
