Ghostbusters: Afterlife contains dozens of callbacks to the original 1984 movie, from the appearance of the original Ghostbusting team, to the iconic villain and even the appearance of some recognisable items from the film, but some fans have wondered where this leaves 1989’s Ghostbusters II when it comes to what is and what isn’t canon. Jason Reitman has confirmed in a recent interview that the original sequel is very much a part of Ghostbusters: Afterlife’s history and it could well have some bearing in a potential sequel if one gets the green light.

Ghostbuster: Afterlife takes place almost four decades on from the events of Ghostbusters, with the grandchild of Egon Spengler moving into a ramshackle farmhouse in the middle of nowhere that was owned by the former Ghostbuster. Unaware of their grandfather’s legacy, they begin to discover strange things happening in an old abandoned mine and soon all hell is breaking loose around them and they must take up the family business to stop the end of the world. While many recent “legacy sequels” have chosen to pick up storylines from older movies and create whole new histories, with the current run of Halloween movies being one example, there has been a question of whether Ghostbusters: Afterlife retcons the attempt of Vigo the Carpathian’s attempt to bring about his own apocalypse in the Ghostbusters II.

While the 1989 movie isn’t directly referenced in Afterlife, Jason Reitman cleared up any doubt that the events that took place in it are definitely canon, with some pretty big references littered throughout Afterlife if you know what to look for. Additionally, Reitman hinted that a potential sequel could be linked to ideas stemming from Ghostbusters II.

"I wish I could talk to you about [Egon deciding to repaint the Ghostbusters II logo on the Ecto-1.]... I’m just saying that’s a plot that is not in this film and we have ideas moving forward... Ghostbusters II, definitely canon. There are references to Ghostbusters II in Afterlife. We meet Ray working at Ray’s Occult. The toaster from Ghostbusters II is in the kitchen in the farmhouse. There’s actually lots of lost Ghostbusters II details but nobody knows Ghostbusters II outside of Vigo the Carpathian and the Ghostbusters II logo. So there’s this assumption that it is not canon but it is definitely canon."

Although the return of Gozer seemed like a perfect way to bring the original Ghostbusters line up back for the sequel, considering the mythology of the demonic entity has heavily featured in video games as well as the original movie, seeing a similar return for Vigo seems unlikely, but with that said, the ending of Ghostbusters: Afterlife is clearly hopeful that there could be another story in the offing in some capacity if they can make it happen. Whether Bill Murray could be enticed back for more is another question entirely, but that doesn’t mean that a sequel wouldn’t deal with the once touted idea of a new team of Ghostbusters being trained up by the old hands. This story originated in an interview with Uproxx.