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Muncher

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Muncher[2] is a free-floating metal-munching ghost from the Summerville area.

History[]

Primary Canon History[]

Ghostbusters: Afterlife[]

In the summer of 2021, Muncher feasted on the metal in the Summerville Foundry. Phoebe and Podcast happened to be outside the Foundry testing out a recently-repaired Proton Pack. They heard Muncher and went inside the Foundry to investigate. Upon entering, the door closed on them. They saw a bite mark with blue Ectoplasm dripping down and kept going until they heard the sound again. They kept going and observed Muncher near the ceiling chomping on a pipe. Podcast asked Phoebe if she was just a little freaked out. Phoebe stated overstimulation calmed her. She ran to a big pipe. Podcast took the goggles off and followed her. They made noise. Muncher paused, looked around, then continued munching. Phoebe peeked then ducked. Podcast got out his Aztec Death Whistle and blew it, thinking it would ward off Muncher like it was purported to. Muncher instead spat metal projectiles at them. After the barrage was over, Phoebe fired at him and hit the overhead piping. She ordered Podcast to get the Trap ready and kept firing. Eventually, she wrangled him in her Proton Stream. Podcast threw the Trap out but it fell on its side. He frantically pulled it back but Muncher broke free and fled the Foundry. He flew around Summerville eating parts of various objects like a stop sign and trash cans. The sheriff's office dispatcher informed all units reports came in that some kind of animal taking a bite out of Steve Fletcher's truck.[3] Phoebe and Podcast returned to town with Trevor in Ecto-1 and eventually came upon Muncher chomping on a fire hydrant.

Trevor braked to a stop and was shocked to see a ghost then asked what they should do. Podcast told him it was a Free floating metal muncher and definitely a Class 5. Podcast wanted to get him but thought of taking a photograph with the Ecto Goggles first. Podcast tried to get a good position and stopped on a lever that inadvertently triggered the gunner seat that Phoebe was sitting on. She and the seat moved outside the car. Muncher heard the noise made by the gunner seat, turned around, stared at them, unscrewed the water cap off the hydrant, roared, and took off as the stream of water gushed out. Phoebe fired at Muncher but she nailed the Empress Theatre sign instead. Eventually, Muncher paused, turned, and spat metal projectiles out of his mouth at Ecto-1. Trevor screamed and swerved. Phoebe lost control of her Particle Thrower and shot some news stands and a store front. Muncher flew into a Chinese restaurant and passed between Callie and Gary Grooberson at their table. After Ecto-1 turned a corner, Phoebe once again wrangled Muncher. Podcast deployed the Remote Trap Vehicle. He just about to trap Muncher but they were about to drive head on into a truck. They screamed and Trevor swerved around then dodged traffic. Phoebe lost Muncher and shot the Spinners Roller Hop sign. Muncher flew out of town and headed towards a mountain on the Shandor Mining Company property. Phoebe, Podcast, and Trevor caught up to him on the gravel road. Phoebe and Podcast successfully trapped him just before they reached the bridge to the Shandor Mining Company.

Muncher remained trapped inside the Remote Trap Vehicle as it was confiscated and locked in the Summerville County Sheriff's Department. The next day, Phoebe, Podcast, Trevor, and Lucky Domingo went to the County Sheriff's Department to retrieve the Ghostbusters' equipment and Ecto-1. Phoebe and Podcast went to look for the equipment in the impound locker, but they were kept in a small jail cell secured with an ANSI Class One electromagnetic deadbolt. Phoebe stated it was unpickable. Podcast got an idea and reached for the RTV controller to release Muncher from the Remote Trap Vehicle. Muncher immediately bent and ate many of the metal bars, making a sizeable hole. He squeezed out of the hole and flew up through the ceiling, leaving some Ectoplasm on the light fixture. With the cell now open thanks to Muncher, Phoebe and Podcast placed everything on a cart and headed to meet up with Trevor and Lucky in the garage.

Tertiary Canon History[]

Ghostbusters: Afterlife ScARe[]

Muncher was captured at some point in the past, most likely by Egon Spengler. He was eventually released from a Trap by Phoebe and Podcast for what the latter described as "completely scientific reasons". As soon as the recruit acquired a Proton Pack, Muncher appeared and regurgitated a radio that suddenly comes to life.

After the possessed radio was defeated, Muncher jump scared the recruit before retreating. The recruit eventually caught up to Muncher, who battled them by upchucking orbs of chewed-up metal before eventually being trapped.

Muncher was eventually freed from the Containment Unit by Gozer. However, it was recaptured by the recruit using the Trap Field.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed[]

Muncher was included in the first DLC on January 31, 2023 but the player must be at Level 60 to play the entity.

Entry Bio[]

While it's been dubbed "Muncher," one could argue that "wholesale devour" may be a more eponymous title. The largest appetite of all the Gluttons I've observed! While Muncher has the capacity to eat through several tons of inanimate waste, it's shown a unique preference for objects of a metallic nature which provide Munchers with bonus "bloat," a phrase I never believed an intellectual, like myself, would ever have to write. When Muncher has its full, it can reform that refuse into small pellets of destructive force.

Ultimate Ability[]
  • Splattershot
    • We may never know what happens inside the "belly" of Muncher after it consumes say, a kitchen's worth of pots and pans... However, what we DO know is that the rapid fire cone of projectiles it emits thereafter is painful, terrifying and will leave those affected noticeably dazed.
Unique Ability[]
  • Consume
    • Unlike other ghostly beings observed in the natural and unnatural, a Glutton has the unique ability to empower itself by consuming physical objects. For you see, it isn't time or energy that will determine when a Glutton's Ultimate Ability Regurgitation is ready. In fact, it is the quantity of clutter filling their belly.

Classification[]

Primary Canon Classification[]

Muncher was identified as a Class 5 free-floating metal muncher by Podcast.[4]

Secondary Canon Classification[]

In Ghostbusters: Afterlife ScARe, Muncher is a Class 5.

Tertiary Canon Classification[]

Trivia[]

Ghostbusters: Afterlife Trivia[]

  • Brynn Metheney worked on Muncher's design from February to May 2019.[5]
  • Jason Reitman initially described Muncher to Brynn Metheney as a "weird little bulldog-like coin purse" that could empty metal out of its body.[6]
  • Brynn Metheney did hundreds of concept designs of Muncher.[7]
  • During development, Muncher went through many colors, including red browns, blues, purple, and gold. It wasn't until Brynn Metheney saw a concept from DNEG and settled on "translucent blue sparkly."[8]
  • Brynn Metheney's back story for Muncher was he is a desperate little ghost who could never be satiated with the amount of metal it gets because in life he was a miner who couldn't get enough of the metal he was mining. At one point, designs had Muncher with ten fingers on each hand, he was scarier, and grabbier. At some point visual effects supervisor Sheena Dugal gave Jason Reitman some reference photographs of the water bears and he was captivated. The Muncher design shifted to the water bear inspiration. Metheny rationalized the multiple arms were out of necessity so he could move around in confined environments.[9]
    • Concept artist Brynn Metheney came up with an alternative back story for Muncher, saying that he was conjured after a séance went wrong at the Summerville Foundry in the 1940s.[10]
  • Arjen Tuiten did some concept art, but the final Muncher design chosen was much different. Tuiten did later make foam latex skins of Muncher for the visual effects team to have reference for.[11][12]
  • The VFX team took inspiration from tardigrades and glass frogs for Muncher's translucency.[13]
  • Josh Gad, who voices Muncher, bumped into Jason Reitman on the Sony lot and was asked if he wanted to come and voice a ghost. They went into the studio and recorded right away.[14]
  • Muncher shares several similarities with Slimer, as they are both classified as Class 5s. Ray refers to Slimer as a Class 5 Full-Roaming Vapor whereas Podcast refers to Muncher as a Class 5 Free-Floating Metal-Muncher. During production, the crew knew that Muncher would be of the same free floating class as Slimer.[15]
    • Muncher was also an attempt to get back to how Slimer was scary and angry in the first movie.[16]
  • Incidentally, on the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "Back in the Saddle, Part 1" which featured the new team teaming up with the original team, entailed ghosts that ate metal but had an ability to self-replicate when shot with proton streams.
  • Armorer Ben Eadie suggested "Incoming!" be shouted when Muncher fires projectiles in the Foundry. Ivan Reitman liked the suggestion, they filmed it, but it wasn't used.[17][18][19]
  • The Muncher chase was built as an afternoon chase that crescendos at sunset. It was filmed over the course of principle photography in different towns. Jason Reitman considers it one of the most complicated pieces of filmmaking he has ever undertaken.[20]
  • The Muncher chase scene took all of principal photography to film.[21]
  • In Ghostbusters: Afterlife ScARe, Muncher is described by Podcast as the ghost he and Pheobe accidentally released from a Trap discovered at the Farmhouse, rather than Vinz Clortho like in the film.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed Trivia[]

  • Patch 1.4.1 fixed an issue where the incorrect stats were being displayed for the Glutton, increased Bloat per tick when Consuming, reduced Consume cost, and increased Consume refund when canceled.[22]
  • Patch 1.5.0 updated Glutton's VFX, Glutton's projectiles now visually scale to match Consume levels, and fixed an issue where Glutton's Reduced Haunted Object Time was not working properly.[23]
  • Patch 1.5.1 fixed an issue that was causing the Glutton to become invisible.[24]
  • Patch 1.7.0 changed the ultimate ability to now deal damage to traps and gadgets, increased possessable consumption rate, changed the consume ability to it now replenishes P.K.E., and adjusted ultimate ability costs, damage, and cooldown to account for the new Glutton changes.[25]
  • Patch 1.7.1. changed Glutton bots to now use their unique and ultimate abilities more often.[26]

Miscellaneous Tertiary Canon Trivia[]

Appearances[]

Primary Canon Apperances[]

Tertiary Canon Appearances[]



References[]

  1. ↑ IGN YouTube "Ghostbusters: Afterlife Director Jason Reitman on Fan Service and Revealing the Movie's Secrets" 3:53-4:09 11/13/2021 Jason Reitman says: "Josh and I ran into each other on the Sony lot and I was like, "Hey, do you want to come voice this ghost?" And he was, "Yes!" And he literally just walked in the room. We were literally in a room at the time. He walked right in, he started doing sounds and-and that is where the sound of Muncher came from."
  2. ↑ Podcast (2022). Ghostbusters: Afterlife Chapter 9 (2021) (Blu-Ray ts. 57:13-57:15). Sony Pictures. Podcast says: "Muncher."
  3. ↑ Dispatcher (2022). Ghostbusters: Afterlife Chapter 9 (2021) (Blu-Ray ts. 57:03-57:12). Sony Pictures. Dispatcher says: "All units, we're getting reports of, well, some kind of animal taking a bite out of Steve Fletcher's truck. Apparently, he almost took the whole tail gate off?"
  4. ↑ Podcast (2022). Ghostbusters: Afterlife Chapter 10 (2021) (Blu-Ray ts. 58:12-58:15). Sony Pictures. Podcast says: "Free-floating metal muncher. Definitely Class Five."
  5. ↑ Yes Have Some YouTube "Ghostbusters: Afterlife Production Roundtable: Ozzy Inguanzo, Brynn Metheney, and Francois Audouy" 19:53-20:03 1/28/2022 Brynn Metheney says: "Muncher took from--I started in February month two of this production. Muncher took from February to May."
  6. ↑ Yes Have Some YouTube "Ghostbusters: Afterlife Production Roundtable: Ozzy Inguanzo, Brynn Metheney, and Francois Audouy" 20:36-20:50 1/28/2022 Brynn Metheney says: "He described him as sort of like a weird little bulldog-like coin purse, like he wanted him to be like something that could empty out all of the metal out of his body."
  7. ↑ The Containment Unit YouTube "Brynn Metheney (Concept Artist, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) Interview!" 14:46-15:34 1/26/2022 Brynn Metheney says: "Muncher was just the worst character to find. He was so hard. It took us like three or four months to figure him out and he's not even that complicated. He's really just a little blobby like kind of baby looking ghost with a couple arms and he's you know kind of this weird little creature but oh my God, I did hundreds to try to figure him out and Jason would just be like 'Oh, you know, like we're getting close here' and then we'd go in that direction. He's like 'No, it's not right. We got to go back.' and so that was fulfilling in the sense that when I finally figured it out or when we all actually figured it out because it was all of us it was like 'Okay, we finally did it. Thank goodness!' and he's-I like Muncher."
  8. ↑ Inguanzo, Ozzy (2021). Ghostbusters: Afterlife The Art and Making of the Movie, p. 124. Titan Books, London UK, ISBN 1789096529. Brynn Metheney says: "I knew I couldn't do green. That was the only color that was off limits. Muncher started out as a horrible rusted color. I was really leaning into red browns, because I felt like it matched the environment, but it wasn't really sticking. I was trying blues. I tried purple, gold, and literally every other color in the spectrum, and then I remember there was this image that came in from DNEG, and it was a translucent blue sparkly kind of color. I don't know that anyone else really noticed it, but when I saw it, I was like, 'That's it! That has to be the color. It's so cool and it has such a life to it. I feels like what a ghost would look like to me.' Jason and Francois really liked it, so I ran with that and pushed it more into the blueish territory."
  9. ↑ The Containment Unit YouTube "Brynn Metheney (Concept Artist, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) Interview!" 21:44-23:34 1/26/2022 Brynn Metheney says: "So the way I had imagined Muncher was being sort of a desperate little ghost who couldn't get enough because metal doesn't have anything in it, it's just kind of this dead material that he's eating and so in my original sketches of Muncher, probably some of the more terrifying ones because in the beginning he was kind of just like I imagined him being the ghost of a miner who couldn't-because everything takes place in a mine who couldn't get enough of the metal he was mining for so he had actually like 10 fingers on each hand and he was a lot scarier and a little grabbier so I think some of his multiple armness stems from that of being kind of greedy in a way that's like I need to grab everything I can plus there were two other things that I think led to the multiple arm decision and one of them was the visual effects supervisor at the time Sheena Dugal offered a lot of reference-photo reference of water bears to Jason and Jason was like captivated by these little creatures and if you've ever seen a water bear, I think they have six limbs and it might be right--six to eight limbs, they have a lot of lips and so I think he was really like kind of fascinated by that look which I think pushed Jason into making the ultimate decision that Muncher would have multiple arms and then from my point of view in adding to these sort of greed aspect of Muncher and trying to grab everything he can, his world is nothing but pipes and caves and so I kind of also thought that maybe just out of necessity, he might have multiple arms to kind of move around in these environments as some kind of fun bit."
  10. ↑ Inguanzo, Ozzy (2021). Ghostbusters: Afterlife The Art and Making of the Movie, p. 124. Titan Books, London UK, ISBN 1789096529. Profile reads: "Muncher is a Class V spirit who was conjured into existence by a seance gone wrong in the 1940's. After terrorizing the group that contacted him, he found himself trapped in the factory manager's office where the conjuring took place."
  11. ↑ Ghostbusters Interdimensional Crossrip "#743 - Arjen Tuiten, Special Make-Up & Live Acton Creature Effects Designer" 40:43-40:48 11/29/2021 Arjen Tuiten says: "And when it comes to Muncher, we did some concepts. They were different."'
  12. ↑ Ghostbusters Interdimensional Crossrip "#743 - Arjen Tuiten, Special Make-Up & Live Acton Creature Effects Designer" 40:54-41:04 11/29/2021 Arjen Tuiten says: "We did do some foam latex skins of Muncher just so visual effects had something-so if this was foam latex creature-a puppet-what would the texture be."
  13. ↑ The Hollywood Reporter "How the ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ VFX Team Put More “Movement Into Ghostbusting”" 1/24/2022 Article reads: "One of the new CG ghosts, Muncher, took cues from a tardigrade (microscopic water bear) and glass frogs for translucency."
  14. ↑ IGN YouTube "Ghostbusters: Afterlife Director Jason Reitman on Fan Service and Revealing the Movie's Secrets" 3:53-4:09 11/13/2021 Jason Reitman says: "Josh and I ran into each other on the Sony lot and I was like, "Hey, do you want to come voice this ghost?" And he was, "Yes!" And he literally just walked in the room. We were literally in a room at the time. He walked right in, he started doing sounds and-and that is where the sound of Muncher came from."
  15. ↑ IGN YouTube "Ghostbusters: Afterlife - Exclusive Trailer Breakdown with Director Jason Reitman" 13:00-13:10 7/26/2021 Jason Reitman says: "We knew that he would be of the same free floating class as Slimer. We knew that he would be kind of just as old and tissue-y and angry."
  16. ↑ IGN YouTube "Ghostbusters: Afterlife - Exclusive Trailer Breakdown with Director Jason Reitman" 13:17-13:22 7/26/2021 Jason Reitman says: "The original Slimer was an angry dude and scary and we wanted to get back to that."
  17. ↑ Yes Have Some YouTube "Ben Eadie - Ghostbusters: Afterlife Props, RTV Trap, & Stories from set" 1:01:50-1:02:14 12/3/2021 Ben Eadie says: "And I remember there's once where the kids were ducking behind a uh-right in the scene where they the Muncher starts firing the stuff at them at the very beginning, it's like bullets. Okay, right tight and the kids are ducking behind it and they were saying like "Get down!" and they're trying all these other things and and they're just like 'it doesn't sound right' and I'm like well I go 'in the infantry' and I'm like oh (expletive)."
  18. ↑ Yes Have Some YouTube "Ben Eadie - Ghostbusters: Afterlife Props, RTV Trap, & Stories from set" 1:02:23-1:02:33 12/3/2021 Ben Eadie says: "When things are coming at you, the universal scream is "Incoming!" and he's and he's like 'that's it. Okay, let's try it: incoming. You got it?' Did I make a line?"
  19. ↑ Yes Have Some YouTube "Ben Eadie - Ghostbusters: Afterlife Props, RTV Trap, & Stories from set" 1:02:43 12/3/2021 Ben Eadie says: "It got cut."
  20. ↑ Grove, David (November 2021). Ghostbusters: Afterlife Links The Original Busters To The Next Generation - And Pays Tribute To A Fallen Hero, SFX Magazine #345, page 32. Future Publishing, UK. Article reads: "One of the great challenges was building a ghostbusting set-piece in sunlight. That has rarely been done before, as the proton beams and ghosts tend to dim and disappear outside during the day. We built the Muncher chase as an afternoon ghost hunt that crescendos at sunset, shooting it piece by piece over the entire filming schedule over multiple towns and sets, setting every corner-turn and proton blast to the right time. It's one of the most complicated pieces of filmmaking I've ever undertaken, and I want to cheer every time I watch it."
  21. ↑ IGN YouTube "Ghostbusters: Afterlife - Exclusive Trailer Breakdown with Director Jason Reitman" 12:00-12:03 7/26/2021 Jason Reitman says: "This sequence that you're seeing a piece of here took the entire film to shoot."
  22. ↑ GhostbustersSU Tweet 2/14/2023
  23. ↑ GhostbustersSU website "DLC 2 Patch Notes" 4/20/2023
  24. ↑ Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed "Patch Notes 1.5.1 (Hotfix)" 5/4/2023
  25. ↑ Ghostbusters SU "DLC 4 Patch Notes" 10/19/2023
  26. ↑ Ghostbusters SU "Patch 1.7.1" 11/7/2023
  27. ↑ Phoebe Spengler (2022). Ghostbusters: Afterlife Chapter 11 (2021) (Blu-Ray ts. 01:09:26-01:09:27). Sony Pictures. Phoebe Spengler says: "It's inside the trap."

Gallery[]

Primary Canon Images[]

Tertiary Canon Images[]

Behind the Scenes[]

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