It appears that we have seen the last of the old school Ghostbusters on the big screen.
That’s according to Dan Aykoyd, who co-created the franchise with the late Harold Ramis, and who appeared in the movies as Ghostbuster Ray Stanz. Speaking to the New York Post about his new TV show The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd, the 72-year-old writer/star/vodka maven said that he believed the cast would not return for a fifth movie any time soon.
“I don’t see that coming,” he said in response to a question about whether he and Ghostbusters star Bill Murray would appear in future installments.
He added…
I don’t see where they would need us to carry it on … They’ve got a whole new cast, and they’ve got whole new ideas.
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Aykroyd, Murray, Ramis, and Ernie Hudson appeared in two hugely successful Ghostbusters films in the 1980s, both directed by the late Ivan Reitman. Then Reitman, Ramis, and Aykroyd spent years trying to get a third Ghostbusters movie off the ground. It took decades for it to happen (and in the meantime, Paul Feig made a contentious reboot of the property, featuring a new cast of female comic stars like Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy).
When the third film finally got made in 2021, Reitman’s son Jason Reitman took over the helm and mostly brought in a new cast, including Carrie Coon as Ramis’ character’s daughter, and Finn Wolfhard and Mckenna Grace as her kids. The surviving Ghostbusters actors appeared in cameos at the end of the movie, and then they returned in larger roles for 2024’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
In that film (directed by Gil Kenan, with Jason Reitman now serving as co-writer/producer), Coon’s family, plus Paul Rudd as their science teacher buddy, become New York’s new Ghostbusters; Aykroyd, Murray, Hudson as well as Annie Potts, the Ghostbusters’ former secretary Janine, all showed up in a few scenes to help them with their latest case.
While all the O.G. stars survived Frozen Empire’s big final fight with an ice-related ghost, the movie also firmly established Coon, Rudd, and the rest of the new cast as the focal point of the franchise moving forward. If it moves forward; Frozen Empire only grossed about $200 million worldwide against a reported budget of $100 million. Whether that’s good enough to get another sequel made remains to be seen.
In the meantime, Reitman and Kenan are currently developing a new Ghostbusters animated series for Netflix. And wouldn’t you know it? Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is currently streaming on Netflix as well.
