James Gunn Shares Wild Throwback Photo Featuring Harold Ramis and the Cast of The Office

11/21/2021 06:54 pm EST

Harold Ramis has been in the news quite a bit lately thanks to the release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The iconic actor and director is best known for playing Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, and the new film follows the story of his daughter's family, who is played by Carrie Coon. Sadly, Ramis passed away in 2014, but today would have been his 77th birthday. Many people have taken to social media today to honor Ramis, including James Gunn. The Guardians of the Galaxy director shared a photo that might seem bizarre at first. It includes himself with Ramis and multiple cast members of The Office, including Kate Flannery (Meredith Palmer), David Denman (Roy Anderson), and Jenna Fischer (Pam Beesly). At first glance, this might seem like an odd pairing, but you may have forgotten that Gunn was married to Fischer from 2000 to 2008, and Ramis directed four episodes of The Office, including the famous "A Benihana Christmas." 

"Happy Birthday, Harold Ramis," Gunn captioned the photo. You can check out the image below:

Ghostbusters: Afterlife sees the return of many original Ghostbusters actors as well as some franchise newcomers. One fan-favorite actor to appear in the new movie is Paul Rudd, who also recently paid tribute to Ramis. 

"I was such a huge Harold Ramis fan. That's a movie where, really, you watch it and go, 'Every single person in it is brilliant.' I felt that way and feel that way about everybody, including not just all of the Ghostbusters, but Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver, across the board," Rudd detailed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. "It was interesting to, all of a sudden, know this movie my whole life then get to work on it with Jason Reitman, whose father directed the original." 

He continued, "It did make me think about Harold Ramis. I knew him a little, yeah. Actually, he played [Seth Rogen's] dad in Knocked Up and he was a director, I worked on a movie he directed just for a day or two, but he was such a lovely guy. And, as you know, you're a comedy fan, I think any comedy enthusiast knows just what an important figure he is in the world of comedy."

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with a 62% critics score after 208 reviews and a 96% audience score after 2,500+ reviews. ComicBook.com's Spencer Perry gave the movie a 2 out of 5, saying it has "abysmally forced references" and while "it's not poorly made on the whole, it's just exhausting."

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is now playing in theaters. 

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