Ghostbusters 3: Why Rick Moranis Isn't Returning For Afterlife

https://screenrant.com/ghostbusters-3-afterlife-rick-moranis-louis-tully-no-return-reason/

Ghostbusters: Afterlife will have the main cast of the original film back, except for one: Rick Moranis, who played Louis Tully. It feels like an odd absence, more so because the production crew managed to convince the often difficult Bill Murray to return, but Moranis has some good reasons not to come back to the world of Ghostbusters. Back in 1984, the world was introduced to a group of paranormal investigators in Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters, the first entry in what would become a successful franchise that has branched out to other media, most notably television and video games.

The film’s success was such that the Ghostbusters became a cultural phenomenon, and made way for a sequel that arrived five years later. Ghostbusters II brought the original team back, as well as Sigourney Weaver as Dana Barrett, Annie Potts as Janine Melnitz, and Rick Moranis as Louis Tully, but sadly, it couldn’t repeat the success of the first film. Now, after an all-female reboot in 2016, the Ghostbusters franchise is making a comeback with Ghostbusters 2020, a direct sequel to Ghostbusters II (so, essentially, Ghostbusters 3).

Directed by Jason Reitman and with Ivan Reitman now as producer, Ghostbusters: Afterlife will focus on a new generation of characters, but will also count with the appearance of the surviving cast – except Rick Moranis, so don’t expect to see Tully back.

Rick Moranis is known for his many comedic roles in the 1980s and early 1990s, including both Ghostbusters films, the horror comedy musical Little Shop of Horrors, and the sci-fi comedy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Although Ghostbusters fans have expressed their desire to see him back as Tully, even if just in a cameo, Moranis has stayed away from the franchise and any on-screen roles in general for years. Following the death of his wife Ann Belsky in 1991, Moranis slowly withdrew from Hollywood to raise his children, and has been mainly working as writer and voice actor.

Moranis turned down a cameo appearance in Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, sharing that it didn’t make sense to him to “do just one day of shooting” on something he did 30 years ago. He also said he would do anything he finds interesting (which obviously wasn’t the case with the latest Ghostbusters stories) and that “it’s hard to come up with original material”. In addition to that, Moranis wasn’t a fan of Ghostbusters 2, which is why he has also been hesitant to join any attempts to revive the franchise. While it’s still possible for Ghostbusters: Afterlife to have one last trick up its sleeve in the shape of a (brief) Tully appearance, it’s completely understandable and respectable if Rick Moranis truly decided not to return. Hopefully, the film will include at least a reference to what has happened to Tully since the last time the audience saw him.