In 2021, filmmakers Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) and Gil Kenan (Monster House) resurrected the beloved Ghostbusters franchise with a legacy sequel intended for fans both old and new, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. While writer-director Paul Feig’s 2016 Ghostbusters reboot sought a different continuity with all-female leads, Afterlife continued the story of the original Ghostbusting team and the legacy they created while introducing a fresh cast of kids to pass the torch to. More specifically, the family of founding Ghostbuster Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis).
Now, the Spengler family returns for another round of paranormal adventures in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which moves the story away from rural Oklahoma and back to the Big Apple. Joined by the original team — Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), and their former secretary Annie Potts (Janine Melnitz) now sporting a proton pack in uniform — in their iconic New York City firehouse, the modern Ghostbusters encounter a demonic threat that plans to bring forth a second ice age. Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor Spengler (Finn Wolfhard), along with their mother Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) and her enthusiastic boyfriend Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), must suit up as a collective family unit and take to the ectomobile (or Ecto-1) to save Manhattan.
The new villain of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a terrifying demon named Garraka that can literally scare people to death. More young cast members from Ghostbusters: Afterlife return as well, like Lucky Domingo (Celeste O’Connor) and Podcast (Logan Kim). Additionally, two comedic, larger-than-life supporting characters are introduced in the ancient languages expert Dr. Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt) and paranormal “third-hand reseller” Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani). Gil Kenan takes over directing duties from Jason Reitman on Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, bringing in some of his usual flair for the spooky and supernatural that audiences have seen in films like 2006’s Monster House and his 2015 Poltergeist remake.
Gil Kenan certainly had his work cut out for him, as Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire takes things to the next level. This is the biggest the series has ever gotten, filled with more ghosts and supernatural action than ever before. By bringing the classic and modern Ghostbuster teams together, Kenan and Reitman balance truly world-ending stakes with fair doses of nostalgia and fan service in their script. To honor the release of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, we sat down with writer-director Gil Kenan to discuss all things Ghostbusters. The filmmaker breaks down the challenges of making any new movie in the franchise, juggling tones of horror and comedy, and the return of the iconic Slimer.
Exclusive Interview with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Director Gil Kenan
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is the sequel to a legacy sequel. How do you go about that?
Gil Kenan: I think there are a few ways to start to answer that question. There was a reason that with Afterlife, we moved it away from New York City and brought it down to a more human story. It’s the story of a family discovering its own connection to a great ghostbusting legacy. That allowed us to create a more personal way to access some of the bigger themes of Ghostbusters, where fans could return to this world and a new audience could discover characters that felt relatable and authentic.
But with this next chapter in the saga, that work has been done. It was now time to come back home. It was time to come back to New York City and create a storytelling environment where we could blow the roof off with a big new ghostbusting adventure. That was always the plan, from Afterlife into this new film.
The Reitmans have been in charge of this mythos for decades, but with you in the director’s chair this time around, do you feel like you were able to make a Ghostbusters movie and still leave your own mark on it as a director?
Gil Kenan: I’m glad you’re asking about that. First of all, Ivan Reitman’s influence is, of course, central to any Ghostbusters film. He brought those characters to life with his direction in 1984 and 1989. Ivan was an important part of our creative process on Afterlife and acted as a producer who wasn’t only there protecting the storytelling of these characters, but also as a father to Jason. He was able to be there to pass that on. Ivan was the first person we told this story to for Frozen Empire when Jason and I were writing it before his untimely passing. So, we’ve always felt his influence, and I’ve always thought about him when I’m making decisions on how to properly tell the story.
Now, to how I was able to bring my own sensibilities into this story, I mean, it’s not a coincidence that this is the Ghostbusters film with the most ghosts in it. And with new ghost characters, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. I felt like through the access to the supernatural in this film, this sort of celebration of it, I was able to bring in some of the instincts that I really love. With Monster House, I was able to create a tonal balance that was pretty central to how I grew up loving cinema and feeling that sense of danger in a movie theater. Even from the time that I was very young, I loved leaning forward to that idea of the unknown or the suspenseful, and sometimes that took darker or moref emotional turns.
I always felt like movies that gave me access to that took me seriously as an audience member. So, I definitely brought that instinct into this film, especially knowing that we were going to be telling some complex, supernatural stories, both in the character of Melody [Emily Alyn Lind] and with Garakka. Both are new concepts in the world of ghostbusting. Melody is our first fully dimensional ghost character, and she has a story of her own with a really important relationship with Phoebe Spengler. With Garakka, we have a ghost who is lethal in a way that we haven’t seen in these stories before. We had the opportunity to create a nightmarish vision that I could not get enough of. So, in every one of those ways, when I watch the film, I can feel my enthusiasm as a Ghostbusters fan, right?
Ghostbusters has always been a mix of different genres and tones, but the comedy is key. How do you go about trying to make sure the movie is genuinely funny? Do you just hire funny actors and trust them?
Gil Kenan: Look, that is definitely the first way you do it. You hire brilliant comedic performers and Ghostbusters has always had an embarrassment of riches. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts are all brilliant comic actors in their own right. But we’ve kept the good times rolling with Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, and Mckenna Grace as well. With this film, we knew we were going to expand the comic vocabulary, and bringing Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt to the party was a big step in that direction. I think those two characters and the comical performances they bring are very much in line with the spirit of Ghostbusters, but feel totally original to Kumail and Patton’s voices as performers.
So, my job is to create an environment for them where they can do their best work. I’m here to tell a story — a funny story, a scary story, a Ghostbusters story. It really takes every muscle you have as a filmmaker to direct a Ghostbusters film. Jason did tell me before I started that this was going to be a really big challenge, that directing a Ghostbusters movie takes everything you’ve got. And he was right. But it’s worth it when you start to share that story with audiences and see how they connect to the world and its loveable characters.
Fans are very excited about the return of Slimer. He has a very storied history even outside of the Ghostbusters franchise. How did you go about bringing that character back into live-action? Did you go back to see how they did it in the original Ghostbusters and build off that?
Gil Kenan: Slimer is the greatest joy to work with as a filmmaker. I love Slimer so much as a spirit, as a concept, as a physical entity. I worked with Arjen Tuiten, a brilliant creature designer and builder, who did a lot of great work on Afterlife. He did the terror dogs, he did the miner ghost, he worked on the Gozer suit. He’s an extraordinary film lover and nerd, just like us, and he’s basically been waiting his whole life for the assignment to make Slimer.
Arjen grew up absolutely poring over scraps of information about what Richard Edlund and Boss Film Studios did to create the original puppet. He actually had been sent and held on to for years, before I ever came to him for Frozen Empire, a little bag that had scraps of foam and some of the color pigments from the original Slimer that he was able to analyze for the color work in our movie. In the spirit of keeping the soul of the character intact, he gave up those pieces of foam and put them into the larger, new foam stew that was created to inject the molds for this new Smiler puppet.
So, in ways big and small, this was a character that was created with love by everyone involved, including our main puppeteer, Kevin, who embodied Slimer. It was a full-body performance. It also takes two other additional puppeteers to give Slimer the scope to move. And then all of the hundreds of visual effects artists, of course. We took all that and, sometimes by enhancing through animation and sometimes just through classic compositing, worked that puppetry into the finished shots. It’s a labor of love. Slimer is a beloved character for all of us on this side of telling the story.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire hits theaters on March 22!
Directed by Gil Kenan.
Written by Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman.
Based on Ghostbusters by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis.
Produced by Ivan Reitman, Jason Reitman, & Jason Blumenfeld.
Main Cast: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Celeste O’Connor, Logan Kim, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, William Atherton, James Acaster, Emily Alyn Lind.
Cinematographer: Eric Steelberg.
Composer: Dario Marianelli.
Production Companies: Columbia Pictures, Ghost Corps, & Right of Way Films.
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing.
Runtime: 115 minutes.
Rated PG-13.