This is crazy. Bill Murray of all people shows up in this commercial, busts Slimer and…it took how many years for him to agree to do Ghostbusters 3 and now he’s making commercials in character? Ahh!
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That is an EXCELLENT Slimer!
This is another thing that I didn’t expect to see this week, lol. But it’s good to see Bill having fun with GB.
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Probably because Kevin Mangold returned to play Slimer again, he did an amazing job:
YHS have posted a clear photo of the ECTO-R1:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DeP2rNLhKlE/
And here’s screenshots of the new software update:
Edit: More details on the Halloween Mode software update and where to see ECTO-R1 in person can be found here: Rivian x Ghostbusters: Halloween 2026
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I wondered if that was the FE puppet. Nice to see it actually get used.
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It’s a single day’s shoot, easy money for him. 
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And he didn’t have to put on a proton pack 
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Gil Kenan was involved in the commercial, too.
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It’s a cool commercial and I love seeing a modern car turned into an Ecto. Happy to see it done officially…basically. Over the years a lot of people would criticize the idea of using new cars.
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That was the most Peter Venkman feeling performance I’ve felt from him since GB 2.
I actually loved everything about this advert.
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I’ve seen that a lot about this advert on other net places, and I’d argue, “Count of three, go on two”, “You always had to MAIM somebody” and “I knew you had one dance left in you” are the same level of performance as this advert in the recent films, but I know what people mean. It’s like he’s mostly remembered the ‘Venkman plays to a crowd’ bits of GB1 and 2, so the broad stuff lands, while he’s slightly forgotten that subdued Venkman always had a twinkle, even when he was grouchy. (But then the interrogation in Frozen Empire does that twinkle really well, so who knows.)
Anyway, the main thing is this is a great fun advert, and it’s 100% something to enjoy! Hooray!
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I cannot believe I lived to see the day Bill Murray willingly did a tie in Ghostbusters ad. Must be a sign of the end times.
Also car looks cool, how much you want to bet a few people are already drafting up ways to get the roof wand on their Ectos?
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I’m surprised by the amount of people guzzling down Bill’s performance here and calling it better than anything since GB1. It was a very fun ad, but it was just that, an ad. Bill hammed it up hard and wasn’t even really Venkman for most of it, he was more like Coulier playing Venkman which was more like his character in Caddyshack or Stripes.
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I didn’t even know what Rivian was. I kept wondering…what are they advertising? Is this going to be like a home security thing? It’s weird someone at this car company thought “hey you know what would help us? Ghostbusters! That’s hip right?”. Like imagine seeing something like this in 1998? It would’ve blown our minds, “Bill Murray? In a car commercial as Venkman? Busting Slimer?”. But now? Everything’s been so diluted this almost feels crass. I guess he did dress up for that scream award back in like…2009? Which was almost 20 years ago!?! How is that possible? But I don’t know. If anyone got the work it would’ve been nice to see someone like Ernie Hudson who’s been loyal and carrying a torch for this franchise. But Bill? The guy who single handedly held up a 3rd film to the point where we never got to see Harold again as Egon. It was like once Harold passed away? Bill was good to go. Now here he is, an old man whose career has taken a turn in the more accountable Hollywood. Now he’s ready to exploit the brand for his own purposes.
I know most will think “who cares it’s a stupid commercial”. It just rubs me the wrong way is all. I love those original characters. So much. And a stupid feud robbed us of…ah forget it. How many times do we have to have this same old conversation?
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To answer your question on “why Ghostbusters”
This is an insanely expensive electric cars, they are essentially big toys for the wealthy. They have games on the dash and they do these “costume” promotions so people can pretend like they bought something really fun and cool with their salary instead of an arguably ugly status symbol that keeps having recalls.
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Maybe we’ll be seeing Winston driving a R1 or R2 in the next movie.
I don’t know if you saw the Ghostbusters Hellbent script or if you heard the ideas for the GB3 that was prepped starting in 2008 to 2014.
Well, I’m almost glad Bill kept saying no.
The Max Landis script? Ya that sounded bad. It was posted here awhile back.
Considering how real life has turned out I’m happy Hellbent did not happen. It’s legitimately creepy how closely it predicted things.
There were numerous iterations of GB3. And anyone who knows anything about Ghostbusters knows that before cameras roll, they change ALOT. Go read the first GB2 script. It isn’t good. Even the shooting script isn’t great. But the final film? With reshoots and changes? It’s the best version of that film. Flawed? Yes. But still awesome and lots of fun.
We have never read a proper Dan/Harold/Ivan GB3 script. That’s the movie I care about. We know the original script from the first film changed drastically between drafts and I have no doubt GB3 would’ve been the same. We know the published script we have has limited Harold and practically no Ivan involved yet.
Some bts info about the commercial:
-used the same Slimer puppet used in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
-Slimer was filmed against a black backdrop.
-The performance of the puppet is 100% practical except when it is being caught. -Real food was used for filming.
-Bill Sturgeon operated the radio controls for the brow and nose movements, Tuiten controlled the eyes and blinking, and Leland Stewart handled the bottom jaw and dressing Slimer
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