Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire director and co-writer Gil Kenan has explained why the upcoming sequel took inspiration from The Real Ghostbusters animated series from the ’80s rather than 1989’s Ghostbusters II.
“We both do love Viggo [from Ghostbusters II], but we felt like because Gozer made their return in Afterlife, the onus on us was to lead boldly into the unknown with creating our villain and go off the map to discover their mythology and their story,” Kenan said in an interview with ComicBook.com about the follow-up to 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
“We did watch a lot of episodes of Real Ghostbusters as a cleansing and as a heart-opening process before we started writing, because that show is, first, so good and super fun and it is also wild with its boundary-breaking, in terms of pulling from mythologies and stories you may have heard of and giving corners of the city supernatural attention in a way that films just don’t have the screen time to do. So watching those shows, actually, was really inspiring, not in a literal way, but in a broader, thematic storytelling and spiritual way.”
Airing Saturday mornings on ABC from 1986 to 1991, The Real Ghostbusters spun off its own mythology from the hit 1984 comedy classic. The premise of the series expanded on the original movie’s story by having the team track down new ghosts around New York and other parts of the world with the lovable Slimer as their unlikely ghost pet. The series gave the Ghostbusters franchise longevity with young audiences in the late ’80s, spawning a line of toys, video games, and several comic book runs in Now Comics and IDW.
What happens in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire?
The official synopsis for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire reads: “In Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the Spengler family returns to where it all started — the iconic NYC firehouse — to team up with the original Ghostbusters, who’ve developed a top-secret research lab to take busting ghosts to the next level. But when the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second Ice Age.”
Directed by Gil Kenan, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire stars Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, and Paul Rudd reprising their roles from 2021’s Afterlife. Original Ghostbusters stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and William Atherton reprise their roles from the 1984 classic. Newcomers to the franchise include Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, and James Acaster.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire hits cinemas on March 22.
