Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Faces A Huge Cast Problem That 2021’s Afterlife Avoided

While Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire can pick up where its 2021 predecessor left off, the sequel will be faced with a new challenge that the previous movie didn’t have to deal with. 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife was a moderate success upon release, earning over $200 million on a budget of $75 million. This ensured that the reboot earned itself a sequel, and the relatively positive reviews received by Ghostbusters: Afterlife made this a promising prospect. While critics did call out the movie’s lengthy runtime, pacing problems, and lack of scares, the movie’s humor, heartfelt nostalgia, and universally enjoyable performances all earned acclaim.

However, it was the reunion of the original Ghostbusters that was Ghostbusters: Afterlife’s biggest selling point. That will change with 2024’s upcoming Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, a direct sequel to Afterlife that will bring the titular paranormal investigators back to New York for the first time in decades. Seeing Janine, Winston, Ray, and Peter Venkman reunited in their hometown promises to be a lot of fun, but Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire also has to devote significant screen time to Finn Wolfhard’s Trevor, Paul Rudd’s Gary Grooberson, Carrie Coon’s Callie, and McKenna Grace’s Phoebe, the new characters introduced in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Must Choose Between The Original Heroes And Their Replacements

Ray, Winston, and Venkman will be vying with their Afterlife co-stars for screen time

Unlike its predecessor, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has to split its time between the new and original Ghostbusters. This will prove a lot harder the second time around since the sequel can’t ignore the returning characters until a cameo in the finale. The ending of Ghostbusters: Afterlife was effective precisely because viewers hadn’t seen the old troupe reunited in decades, so it made sense for the reboot to build up to this moment while fleshing out the new cast members and their stories. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire can’t repeat this trick since the franchise’s highly hyped reunion scene has now been and gone.

Instead, since the initial introductions of Ghostbusters: Afterlife’s new Ghostbusters have also already happened, the sequel needs to decide whether the bulk of its screen time goes to the new ghost-busting group or Venkman, Winston, Janine, and Ray. There are solid arguments for both sets of characters getting the majority of the movie’s limelight. Viewers have a longer history with the iconic original Ghostbusters but, by the same token, they arguably need more time to warm to Gary, Phoebe, Callie, and Trevor. Ghostbusters: Afterlife already prioritized the movie’s new characters, but these characters are the franchise’s future.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife Had An Excuse To Sideline The Original Ghostbusters

The reboot’s delayed cameo made sense as Ghostbusters: Afterlife introduced its new cast

Ghostbusters: Afterlife didn’t have to contend with this issue for two reasons. Mainly, Ghostbusters: Afterlife‘s cast of characters had never been seen before, so the reboot was invested in setting up its new stars. Furthermore, in terms of plot, the original team of Ghostbusters needed to be reunited. Since they had all gone their separate ways in the years after Ghostbusters II, much of the movie’s story was spent establishing a supernatural threat, informing younger characters like Phoebe and Trevor about the Ghostbusters, and then finally getting in touch with the old crew, only for them to rebuff the heroes.

This meant that it was fitting that the original team arrived only in the movie’s closing moments. However, the Ghostbusters are reunited in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and the franchise’s new characters are now well-established, which makes it tougher to work out who the sequel’s main protagonists are. The fact that Janine seemingly becomes a Ghostbuster in Frozen Empire would seem to also imply that the sequel will focus on the original team, but the teaser trailer released in November 2023 mostly centers on footage of Phoebe, Gary, and Trevor. This problem is only heightened by the new cast members.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’s Story Complicates Its Cast Problem Further

The sequel has even more new characters to introduce

Making Janine a Ghostbuster means Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire must spend more time with its original heroes, but adding Patton Oswalt, Emily Alyn Lind, James Acaster, and Kumail Nanjiani to the cast means the sequel also has even more new characters to set up. These additions could be proof that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire will focus mostly on its younger stars since Emily Alyn Lind is close in age to Wolfhard and both Trevor’s potential love interest Lucky Domingo and Phoebe’s sidekick Podcast are also confirmed to be returning in the sequel. However, Oswalt’s Dr. Hubert Wartzki, Acaster’s Lars Pinfield, and Nanjiani’s Nadeem Razmaadi are older.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire also needs to give Winston a bigger role. As such, it is almost impossible to see how the sequel will grant all of these characters the focus that they deserve without shortchanging someone. Even without the new additions, there are four members of the original Ghostbusters gang and six characters returning from Ghostbusters: Afterlife. To make things even more complicated, William Atherton’s original Ghostbusters villain Walter Peck will also be back for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, although the sequel may struggle to give his character more than a momentary cameo thanks to its overstuffed cast.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Should Prioritize Its New Characters

The franchise’s future relies on new arrivals more than existing characters

For all its nostalgia, the Ghostbusters series needs to prove that the next generation can carry a movie with less support from the original cast. As such, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire must focus on its new heroes more than the original gang. Fortunately, one thing that the trailer does confirm is that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’s new characters will replace the original supernatural heroes in the sequel. The fact that Trevor, Gary, Callie, and Phoebe are suited up as Ghostbusters proves that they will fulfill the same roles as Venkman, Ray, Egon, and Winston, which gives the franchise’s heroes room to retire.

This is a good thing since it means that the original franchise cast members can return without the sequel putting too much pressure on their roles. If Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire successfully gets viewers rooting for the new cast members, then the presence of the original heroes will be a welcome bonus rather than an outright necessity. In contrast, if Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire continues to focus mostly on the characters from the ‘80s movies, the series will only prove that it has nothing new to offer viewers. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire must provide more than nostalgia, no matter how fun comebacks might be.