New Ghostbusters: Frozen Kingdom Trailer Goes Fishing
If the modern era of film has proven anything, it’s that you can always go home again. Today, Sony released a new trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Kingdom, the upcoming sequel to the comedy classic Ghostbusters and, more directly, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Ghostbusters: Frozen Kingdom brings Egon Spengler’s daughter and grandchildren and their friends back to the traditional home of the Ghostbusters, New York City, where they must team up with the remaining original Ghostbusters to stop an ancient demon from unleashing a ghost army on the world… via ice or something. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and William Atherton return from Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II; they’re joined by Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Celeste O’Connor, and Logan Kim from Afterlife. Newcomers to the series include Patton Oswalt and Kumail Nanjiani. Written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan and directed by Kenan, Ghostbusters: Frozen Kingdom will arrive in theaters on March 22, 2024. You can see the new trailer below:
If you’ll forgive the pun, I’m warming to Ghostbusters: Frozen Kingdom. I thought Afterlife was okay, but leaned too much on the original film, and while some of the new characters were good (Paul Rudd and Mckenna Grace), some were dull or annoying (Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard). Frozen Kingdom has the benefit of giving the original Ghostbusters bigger parts, but the new trailer makes it seem like they’re going the nostalgia route with this one, too, if to a lesser extent. I’m glad there’s a new villain (Afterlife using Gozer and Zuul again was dumb), but why are the mini-Stay Puft Marshmallow Men back? Stay Puft was a one-time thing in the first movie, and constantly reusing him is nothing but nostalgia bait. On the other hand, I think bringing back Walter Peck is a great idea because of course he’d be causing trouble again – and he’d still have his job despite almost getting the world conquered by an inter-dimensional demon god because meddlesome government bureaucrats like him never go away. Some of the jokes made me laugh, especially the one from Venkman, and Paul Rudd reciting the lyrics to the Ghostbusters theme song was funny (although it’s a bit of a riff on a gag of his from Role Models, which is a great movie if you’ve never seen it). That fish ghost they chase through the city looks cool as well. I’ve gone from wishing this didn’t exist to being interested in seeing how it turns out.
