Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - Release Date, Cast, Plot And More Info

Who'd have thunk a movie about a bunch of slobby ghost-hunting scientists would birth a franchise that's still going strong 40 years later? Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma (and call it more than a little Generation X nostalgia), "Ghostbusters" has endured all sorts of ups and downs on its unlikely journey to reaching middle age. Now, the stars of the late Ivan Reitman's original 1984 paranormal comedy (save for the late Harold Ramis) are coming back for a chapter that will see the old guard don their proton packs alongside a new generation of quipping, ghost-catching heroes.

"Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" (not to be confused with the upcoming "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire," although as /Film's Hannah Shaw-Williams has pointed out, they do both focus on "boss battle set pieces featuring giant monsters") is the direct followup to 2021's "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," itself a legacy sequel that introduced Egon Spengler's (Ramis) grown-daughter and grandkids as the heirs apparent to the family business. Contrary to its name, "Frozen Empire" will be hitting theaters just as things start to thaw out and winter gives way to spring, so let's recap what we know about it ahead of then.

Sony had originally planned to unleash "Frozen Empire" over the 2023 winter holiday season, which would have made sense given the film's ice-themed plot. However, due to the dual Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes taking as long as they did to resolve (a matter that Sony and its fellow studios are to blame for), the movie wound up being pushed back to March 29, 2024, a date that was previously reserved for the since-delayed "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse."

On the plus side, "Frozen Empire" being postponed means it's now arriving just in time to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the "Ghostbusters" property (something Sony can use to its advantage in its marketing). More recently, the sequel was bumped up a week to March 22, 2024, to take advantage of Hollywood's sparse post-strike slate in the early going of the year. The studio also has "Madame Web" swinging in a month before that, but ... well, if you need further proof as to which film the studio is more confident about, one need look no further than the fact that "Frozen Empire" already has twice as many trailers as Dakota Johnson's "Spider-Man" spinoff — sorry, "suspense-driven thriller."

The big issue a lot of people (*slowly raises hand*) had with "Afterlife" was that it has the makings of a sturdy Amblin-style coming-of-age fantasy adventure throwback in its first half, only to go all-in on a nostalgia-driven second-half that left even the more steadfast "Ghostbusters" enthusiasts disillusioned by how much it rehashed from the original 1984 film. Thankfully, "Frozen Empire" seems a little more interested in moving the property forward, bringing in never-before-seen villains and tackling a fresh story involving the potential end of the world. (This is still a "Ghostbusters" movie.)

Picking up where "Afterlife" left off, "Froze Empire" will follow the Spenglers as they leave dusty Oklahoma behind and head to New York City — the quintessential "Ghostbusters" setting — to team up with the OG Ghostbusters, who are now funded by the wealthy Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson). Before they know it, though, what was meant to be a breezy summer goes ice-cold as an ancient evil is unleashed, threatening to freeze NYC and the rest of the world with it. Deliberate climate change metaphor or just an excuse to use Bananarama's '80s classic "Cruel Summer" in the marketing? I say, why not both?

"Afterlife" introduced an agreeable set of Zoomers to carry the franchise forward, including Mckenna Grace as Phoebe Spengler (very much a chip off the same scientific-minded, socially awkward block as her grandfather), her older brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard playing a very Finn Wolfhard character), a quirky tech guru nicknamed Podcast (Logan Kim), and Lucky Domingo (Celeste O'Connor), the most level-headed member of the group. They'll all be back for more in "Frozen Empire," as will senior — in more than one sense of the term — 'busters Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond "Ray" Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson).

Meanwhile, Phoebe and Trevor's mother Callie (Carrie Coon) will be accompanying these impressionable youths to NYC, as will her boyfriend and Phoebe's teacher, seismologist Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd). Both characters will also get to suit up as Ghostbusters this time, too, as will the original Ghostbusters' former put-upon secretary Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts). Last but not least, Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt will become the latest comedy superstars to join this franchise as a pair of characters who help the heroes thwart the apocalypse (or maybe one or more of them is secretly behind it — you can never be too sure about these things).

Where "Afterlife" saw Jason Reitman take his father's place at the helm, "Frozen Empire" is being directed by "Afterlife" co-writer Gil Kenan. Far from his first time in the saddle, Kenan made his feature-directing debut on the animated horror-comedy "Monster House" before tackling the post-apocalyptic adventure "City of Ember" and the "Poltergeist" remake.

While the quality of his work can vary, Kenan has an undeniable talent for making family-friendly films with honest-to-goodness scares and a real sense of stakes. It's something the best old-school Amblin movies had and a rare quality in mainstream titles these days, which is why it's encouraging to hear Nanjiani describe "Frozen Empire" as having "some really, genuinely scary stuff." The previous "Ghostbusters" sequels have had, at best, mixed success achieving a healthy ratio of scares to laughs, but with a little luck, Kenan will be the next director to manage that delicate alchemy.

Despite stepping down as director, Jason Reitman is still involved as Kenan's co-writer and producer on "Frozen Empire." The best parts of "Afterlife" played to Reitman's strengths at making off-beat domestic comedy dramas like "Juno" and "Tully"; even moving the action away from NYC helped open up the franchise to a whole new visual palette. It was only when it came time to do something different with the "Ghostbusters" IP itself that Reitman faltered.

Speaking to Empire magazine recently, Reitman noted that "Afterlife" was always meant to function as "a passing-the-torch movie — it was about setting this world up again and establishing our new characters." With the torch now fully passed, can he and Kenan resist the urge to smack down on that nostalgia button more than necessary this time around? It would sure be swell if they could, allowing this franchise to finally stop chasing the ghost of the original movie (apologies, some puns are just too easy to resist).

Both of the "Frozen Empire" trailers release so far lean heavier on the film's scarier moments, with images of giant icicles bursting from the ground — threatening to skewer the hapless citizens of NYC — and people being frozen solid and even shattering at the touch. It's an effective way of making the movie's Big Bad feel like a bonafide menace for the current era of "Ghostbusters" (which has more in common with the Saturday Morning mayhem of the "Real Ghostbusters" animated series than, say, the full-blown horror-comedy of "Ghostbusters II").

Unfortunately, the full-length trailer (see above) also leans harder into the nostalgia than the teaser before it, bringing back William Atherton as the Ghostbusters' old enemy Walter "D*ckless" Peck along with familiar ghouls like Slimer, the Mini Pufts Marshmallow Men, and even the infamous library ghost. Will these callbacks be better spaced out in the actual movie, or is "Frozen Empire" about to make the same mistake as "Afterlife" did? We'll find out when "Frozen Empire" opens in theaters this spring.