Ghostbusters: Afterlife director Jason Reitman revealed that a sequel to the film could feature the return of Ghostbusters II villain Vigo the Carpathian.

"There is a lot of time and opportunity for Vigo the Carpathian to make his return," Reitman said during an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "Look, are you saying that's the only painting of Vigo the Carpathian? Maybe, he's riding a horse in another one, maybe, impaling someone in another one."

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Vigo the Carpathian, played on screen by the late Wilhelm von Homburg and voiced by the late Max von Sydow, was a 16th Century medieval tyrant and sorcerer. The 1989 Ghostbusters sequel sees his self-portrait at the Manhattan Museum of Art come to life and possess the museum's curator, played by Peter MacNicol.

Reitman recently confirmed that Ghostbusters II is still canon in Afterlife, which includes subtle references to the 1989 sequel. "We meet Ray working at Ray's Occult," Reitman noted. "The toaster from Ghostbusters II is in the kitchen in the farmhouse. There's actually lots of lost of 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."

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Fans of Ghostbusters II may recall that the sequel altered the logo on the Ecto-1 ghost-busting vehicle to show the ghost holding up two fingers. In Afterlife, however, the vintage Ecto-1 features the original Ghostbusters logo from the first film. Reitman recently said the logo change could serve as a major plot point in an Afterlife follow-up.

Afterlife sets up another sequel, but whether or not it comes to fruition will largely depend on the film's performance at the box office. Fortunately for fans, the movie scored a very solid $44 million over its opening weekend and is projected to take in another $36 million over the five-day Thanksgiving corridor. Word of mouth is strong on Afterlife, which has a 95 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's expected to have long legs at the box office.

At one point, Dan Aykroyd wrote a draft for a sequel titled Ghostbusters III: Hellbent, which would have seen the titular heroes travel to hell. Similar to Afterlife, the idea was that the Ghostbusters would pass the torch to a new generation, but the film never got off the ground due to both budgetary concerns and Bill Murray's lack of interest.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is currently playing in theaters.

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Source: Happy Sad Confused