How Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Is Biggest-Scale Sequel Yet Teased By Dan Aykroyd

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire star Dan Aykroyd teases how the new film will be the biggest one yet. Serving as a follow-up to 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the upcoming sequel, which is directed by Gil Kenan, sees New York City taken over by a frigid ghostly force. Assembled against this new enemy is the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire cast, which includes legacy players like Ray Stantz (Aykroyd), Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), in addition to newcomers like Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), Callie (Carry Coon), Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard).

Now, ahead of the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire release date, Aykroyd teases what’s to come from the new sequel in an interview with Newsweek. According to the actor, the new film will explore loss, betrayal, and forgiveness “more emotionally” than any previous franchise entry, in addition to including “some great scares and effects.” “It’s really going to work,” he promises. Check out Aykroyd’s additional comments below:

“When we marry the old lore and some of the traditions with these four spectacular new performances, you get a blend-in service of a really neat New York story that gives us faith in carrying on with the Ghostbusters concept. We’ve never done this to Manhattan before. There’s a historical base to it that’s quite beautiful. We took full advantage of CGI technology but we also, where we could, kept old-school effects alive.”

How Frozen Empire Can Build on Ghostbusters: Afterlife

After 2016’s reboot failed to really resonate with audiences, Ghostbusters: Afterlife represented a continuation of the story of the first two movies from the 1980s. The film mostly focuses on new members of the Spengler family, but legacy characters are teased throughout, eventually culminating in a touching finale in which new and old characters join forces to defeat Gozer.

After the Ghostbusters: Afterlife ending, the upcoming follow-up movie will seemingly include legacy characters much more prominently in the story. While new characters like Gary, Callie, Phoebe, and Trevor proved popular, assembling these newcomers with beloved characters from the original movies is already a recipe for success, and it teases the even higher stakes that are to come.

While the stakes were certainly high in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the movie was fairly contained geographically speaking, with much of the action taking place in a relatively quiet little town. Moving the action to New York City will likely mean more chaos and the potential for more collateral damage, with trailers teasing that the entire city has essentially been brought to its knees by this ghostly “death chill”. It remains to be seen how Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire will be received, but it has the makings of the most epic installment in the franchise yet.