Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Chills Expectations with Familiar First Trailer

Show of hands: How many among us had forgotten that Jason Reitman’s 2021 Ghostbusters reboot, Ghostbusters: Afterlife had ever taken place, only two years later? That’s a testament to the absolute lack of vitality present in so many of these franchise retreads these days, of which Afterlife was a particularly fitting example. The film came and went quickly, made a relatively small profit–a lower gross than the 2016 Ghostbusters, even–and then left the public consciousness. But that hasn’t stopped Sony from soldiering onward with another entry following the same characters in the form of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which debuted its immediately familiar first trailer today. You can watch below, but don’t be surprised if you feel like you’ve already seen the trailer after viewing it. That’s a normal reaction at this point. The film is currently scheduled for a March 29, 2024 release.

Frozen Empire is directed by Gil Kenan of Monster House and 2015’s likewise immediately forgotten Poltergeist remake, stepping in for Reitman after co-writing on the previous film. The action here moves back to New York City, which will likely be welcomed by series fans, given that fact that most of said fans really seem to only want to see the same things they’ve seen before. Oh, and as the name implies, there’s a bit of a chilly theme this time around. As the official synopsis puts it:

In Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the Spengler family returns to where it all started – the iconic New York City 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.

For what it’s worth, “Frozen Empire” sounds like a double entendre, in reference to New York’s old nickname of “The Empire State,” rather than a specific reference to the famous skyscraper. The trailer below, meanwhile, shows off some of the new additions to the series, including Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt and Emily Alyn Lind, joining Afterlife‘s Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd. Also in the mix in at least some capacity: Bill Murry, Ernie Hudson, and Dan Aykroyd, who gets a fair number of lines in the trailer–Murray is unsurprisingly silent. Amusingly, even the likes of William Atherton–who played histrionic EPA agent/antagonist Walter Peck in the 1984 original–will apparently appear in Frozen Empire. Surely, fans have wondered what this government bureaucrat has been up to for the last … 40 years?

Check out the first Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire trailer below. Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be any of the hot William Atherton footage that fans will no doubt be clamoring for. You’ll have to wait for the second trailer for that.