Fans of the Ghostbusters franchise will be excited to know that there is a new Ghostbusters animation series coming to Netflix. Production of the series will be overseen by Ghost Corps, Inc., based at Columbia Pictures and Netflix. This comes on the annual Ghostbusters Day celebration, which marks the release of the original movie from 1984.
According to Variety, Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan of Ghost Corps Inc. have been tasked with the delivery of the project as executive producers. Kenan and Reitman both worked previously on the recent Ghostbusters movie, Ghostbusters: Afterlife with Reitman directing the movie which was co-written by the pair. This new animated series upon release will be the third carton-based project of the original movie.
The first animated work of the franchise was The Real Ghostbusters which debuted in 1986 and aired for 140 episodes syndicated through 1991. 1997 saw Extreme Ghostbusters and Egon Spengler come to screens and air for 40 episodes. The first show maintained the cast of the original movie while the second brought together a new cast. The new animated series does not currently have any writer attached at the moment and exact details as to what the plot entails have not been made public.
Jason Reitman has a long history with the Ghostbusters franchise as the original 1984 film, Ghostbusters, that launched the franchise was directed by his father, Ivan Reitman. Ghostbusters 2 came along in 1989 and maintained the same cast and creative minds of the first film. Before Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the franchise saw a reboot by Paul Feig in 2016 in Ghostbusters, starring Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon. This new addition to the franchise will have a huge task as the most recent feature film of the sequel train grossed $200 million at the box office worldwide.
This type of success must have been appealing as Sony chairman Tom Rothman announced that further sequels were in the works. In a conversation with Deadline when quizzed about the possibility of more Ghostbusters sequels he answers simply “yes” and then explains further:
“Yes, we will. We have plenty of franchise universes with which to operate in, but since I have Deadline here, I want to say, and please include this, OK? Everyone will say, yeah you did $3 billion but it’s all sequels and superheroes. It was not all that. There was Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and Little Women. This summer, we’ve got Bullet Train, from David Leitch, with Brad Pitt, a pure original, R-rated rock ‘em, sock ‘em action movie for grownups. And Where the Crawdads Sing, a big bestseller with an up-and-coming actress, Daisy Edgar Jones, for women. I absolutely believe that women will come back to the box office.”
The new animated Ghostbusters series does not yet have a release date. Stay tuned at Collider for further updates and more Ghostbusters news!
