'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' Sequel Release Date Moved Up

Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel release date has been moved up to 20th December 2023. The film is set to come sooner than expected, with many people saying that the film had been in development for a while before this news came out. The news that there would be a sequel in the works came just a few months ago. While the film had received mixed reviews, it had performed extremely well at the box office, a whopping $204 million against its $75 million production budget, according to ScreenRant. 

Jason Reitman, director of Ghostbusters: Afterlife took over from his father, director/producer Ivan Reitman who had directed the original duology. The film introduced the descendants of Harold Ramis' Egon Spengler as they faced a major supernatural threat with ties to the Manhattan Crossrip from the original film. The cast too had expanded to include Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Celeste O'Connor, and Logan Kim while also featuring the returns of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Sigourney Weaver reprising their original roles. Afterlife showed a single mother and her children move into the house owned by her estranged father after he dies from a fatal heart attack. The children find a ghost trap in the farmhouse which drives them to find out about their connection with the legendary team of Ghostbusters. 

The new film has been codenamed “Firehouse” which is reminiscent of the previous film’s codename being “Rust City”. Director Reitman tells The Hollywood Reporter, “At the end of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the Ecto-1 is driving into Manhattan, returning to its home. And before anyone ever heard the title Afterlife, we called it Rust City. Which would not have made sense to anyone until they saw the movie.” Reitman also confirmed that the film would be the “next chapter in the Spengler family story,” indicating plans to bring back Mckenna Grace's Phoebe and Finn Wolfhard's Trevor at the very least. 

Afterlife brought back the original cast including Bill Murray, however, it is unclear whether they will be there in the new sequel. Dan Aykroyd who plays Ray Stantz was extremely interested in coming back for the sequel while Reitman wanted to explore the stories featuring the younger cast in the next film. Stepping away from Oklahoma too, this film will be based in New York City where the original duology was based in. The success of this film has led Sony to make multiple projects in this franchise including an animated film and animated Ghostbusters TV series produced at Netflix. 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is available to stream on Netflix.