Ghostbusters - A Complete Fan Guide

On June 8, 1984, Columbia Pictures released a movie the likes of which Hollywood and audiences had never seen before: an unlikely concoction of horror frights, spooky villains, action and laugh-out-loud comedy. With all these disparate elements, Ghostbusters, starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson, was all but destined to fail. Instead, the supernatural comedy (a term coined specifically for the film) became a blockbuster success—and more. The movie left an indelible mark on popular culture, produced a theme song that was a No. 1 hit and perpetual earworm, cemented Murray’s standing as a comedic genius, helped change Hollywood by codifying the “film franchise” as a business model, and had the studio execs begging for more. But filmmakers found that recapturing movie magic is an enterprise as…

With details sealed up tighter than a spirit in a muon trap, Ghostbusters fans searched high and low for clues about the latest movie. For a long time, not even the title was known. And everyone was asking if the sequel-shy Bill Murray would be back again. Even the release of the movie’s new icicle-covered logo in June 2023 created more questions than answers. Were they going to the North Pole? Was the film set in a post-apocalyptic hell space, as star Dan Aykroyd had originally envisioned for the never-produced Ghostbusters III? Or perhaps the design simply related to the original release date of Christmas 2023? Fans finally got some answers in November 2023, when the trailer for the fifth Ghostbusters movie—Frozen Empire—dropped, teasing one creepy-cool flick. As we heard…

When Mckenna Grace was a little girl, she dressed up as Bill Murray’s Ghostbusters character for Halloween and declared, “I’m going to be a Ghostbuster one day.” That day arrived in 2021, when she played Phoebe Spengler, a science-obsessed teenager who strapped on a proton pack and led a team of spirit hunters in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Now, she’s back for more in Frozen Empire. “She’s effectively the CEO of the new iteration,” Dan Aykroyd told The Chris Moyles Show podcast. Pressure? Not for this veteran. A native of Grapevine, Texas, Grace got a taste for show business early, winning a Tiny Miss Texas contest as a child. At the ripe young age of 5, she begged her mom to let her be an actress and worked on her craft by…

After shooting up nearly 12 inches in just a few months to stand 5-foot-11, Finn Wolfhard said he found his new body, clearly transformed by puberty, “really funny,” and used his gangly physique for laughs in Ghostbusters: Afterlife to elevate a typical “boring big brother” role to a showcase for physical comedy. Now, still skinny but a little bit filled out, the more mature Wolfhard returns for the sequel, Frozen Empire, as Trevor Spengler, the grandson of original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler. “I’m excited to kind of play an older version of the character as he’s grown, and just get back with everyone,” he told CinemaBlend. The Canada-born Wolfhard was surprised when he was cast in 2021’s Afterlife, because he’d already dressed as a Ghostbuster in Netflix’s megahit series Stranger Things.…

Describing the original Ghostbusters as a “seminal film for my entire generation,” Paul Rudd said that joining the franchise as seismologist and summer school science teacher Gary Grooberson ranks as a career highlight—albeit a bittersweet one. That’s because he couldn’t share the experience with one of his idols, OG Ghostbuster Harold Ramis, who had died in 2014. A big fan of Ramis’ since the actor-director’s days on the Canadian sketch comedy series Second City Television, Rudd got to meet him when he cameoed on the Ramis-directed Year One in 2009, but he never got to act alongside him. “He was the loveliest man. Really funny, really calm and Buddhist-like,” Rudd told Screen Rant. “Working on [Ghostbusters: Afterlife] made me really miss him and wish that I could talk to him…

By her own admission, Carrie Coon has enjoyed a “charmed” career trajectory, boasting an IMDb page that she proudly says doesn’t contain a single “dud,” with a slew of awards and nominations sweetening a slate of plum roles. It’s no surprise, then, that this serious actress with a master’s degree in fine arts has a serious take on even her most commercial work. To wit: She believes Ghostbusters: Afterlife and its follow-up, Frozen Empire, should be admired for celebrating science at a time when science has come under attack in certain political quarters. “I wish that we didn’t have to write a love letter to science and that people would believe in it. It’s science!” Coon, who plays Callie Spengler, single mom to Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard),…