Sony Pictures is checking the tread on the Ecto-1’s tires, suiting up in those iconic jumpsuits, and firing up its ghost traps all over again, all while a cold wind blows into theaters. 2024 marks a milestone for the Ghostbusters franchise, as it’ll be 40 years since Ivan Reitman’s black comedy first slimed us. More than this, Gil Kenan is continuing the frightening franchise with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
After many years of development hell and Dan Aykroyd’s plans for Ghostbusters III: Hellbent failing to rise from the grave, Jason Reitman took over from his father for Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Like 2016’s all-female Ghostbusters, Afterlife was a trip down memory lane. It’s business as usual here, and as the phone rings off the hook at Ghostbusters HQ, here are the 10 best Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Easter eggs you might’ve missed.
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NICE RIDE
It’s good to see that after all these years, the Ghostbusters are still patrolling the streets of NYC in a familiar set of wheels. There have been some weird and wonderful vehicles in this world, with the team having driven the Ecto-Bomber, Japan-based Ecto-Ishi, and time-traveling Ecto-10.
In an interview with Adam Savage, Jason Reitman explained how only 100 of the 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Sentinels were ever built. The Ghostbusters team owns three of them, with the majority of the others belonging to private collectors. Having 3% of the entire collection is pretty impressive. Frozen Empire’s Ecto-1 isn’t the exact one from the ‘80, as after filming wrapped on Ghostbusters II, the original Ecto-1 gave up the ‘ghost’ and currently sits outside the Sony Picture’s Ghost Corp building with the 2016 Ecto-1. We also get a brand-new vehicle in the form of Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) riding his Ecto-C motorcycle.
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GHOSTBUSTERS II
INhile Afterlife took some flak for seemingly glossing over Ghostbusters II and leaving some worried that it’s not canon, Frozen Empire doubles down on its place in the Busterverse. A news report about the team catching the Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon mentions the damage they caused back in 1989, even showing footage of the Statue of Liberty roaming the streets.
Lady Liberty has thankfully been put back in her place, and as Garraka descends on New York City, we see the Statue of Liberty being frozen over. There’s another throwaway nod to the cult classic, as we see Winston’s (Ernie Hudson) engineers testing out a Slime Blower in the Paranormal Research Center. These weapons were used to spray positively charged Psychomagnotheric Slime on the Statue of Liberty.
Among Frozen Empire’s complaints, there are still those who are annoyed there’s more of an emphasis on the first movie. Jason Reitman himself has acknowledged a tiny Easter egg that there’s a hole in the firehouse floor from when the containment unit blew up in the first movie. In fact, this incident is a major part of Frozen Empire’s arc.
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MELNITZ IN UNIFORM
Aside from Hudson’s Winston being sidelined, another member of the Ghostbusters cast has repeatedly been resigned to the bench. Annie Potts’s signature drawl puts her back in Frozen Empire, and it’s not just Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) who’s happy to see Melnitz in uniform.
Although Janine is seen getting it on with Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) in Ghostbusters II, it’s always implied there’s a thing between her and Egon — hammered home in Afterlife. Moranis famously turned down a cameo in 2016’s Ghostbusters and didn’t appear in Afterlife, leaving room on the team for Janine to step up.
In Frozen Empire, Melnitz gets her own jumpsuit, although she first got one in The Real Ghostbusters episode, “Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster.” Speaking to Empire, Potts explained what it was like to finally don the uniform, telling the outlet, “Janine has served long and well, and I felt like she was finally getting her stripes…The Ghostbusters are kind of superheroes, so it’s very nice to finally be seen in that way, too.”
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HORROR HOMAGES
Despite Frozen Empire’s PG-13 rating, there are some horror homages from movies that definitely aren’t for kids. Most of them relate to the Possessor ghost, with the clue being in the name. When the team visit Winston’s Paranormal Research Center, it all feels very Jurassic Park with ghosts locked in tanks and things inevitably going to go wrong.
When we first meet the Possessor, it jumps inside a television and gives a wink to Poltergeist. During the final assault on the Ghostbusters HQ, a creepy tricycle wheels toward the team and echoes the feeling of Saw. Finally, the Possessor gets inside and gives Garraka a hand by possessing the Ecto-1 to give us some Christine vibes.
Frozen Empire doesn’t follow the classic route of having one of our characters possessed, like Louis in Ghostbusters, Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol) in Ghostbusters II, or Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) in 2016’s Ghostbusters. Instead, one of the New York Public Library stone lions gets the possession treatment.
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THERE IS NO DANA, ONLY ZUU
One of the major disappointments from Frozen Empire is that Sigourney Weaver doesn’t reprise her role as Dana Barrett. Afterlife shoehorned Weaver into the movie’s post-credit scene and suggested there she and Venkman might still be a thing. Many felt the character was wasted, but that’s nothing compared to Frozen Empire.
We knew Weaver wouldn’t be in Frozen Empire, with Weaver telling Collider, “No, I mean, I wasn’t asked to be in this Ghostbusters, and I think, you know, a little of us goes a long way.”
Dana is a case of gone but not forgotten, and even though she doesn’t get a mention in the sequel, there is a hidden reference to her.
Despite a bizarre career shift to working in the Manhattan Museum of Art restoration department in Ghostbusters II, the first movie introduced Dana as a cello in “a major symphony orchestra” — presumably the New York Philharmonic. When Stantz, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), and Podcast (Logan Kim) go to the library, the exterior shots have an ad for Dana’s next concert.
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FOR IVAN
What would the Ghostbusters movies be without Ivan Reitman? Having directed the first two movies, Reitman was attached to the notoriously troubled Ghostbusters III until Harold Ramis’ death in 2014. This closed the book on the original plan for a threequel and saw Paul Feig take over for the all-female reboot.
Although Reitman stepped down for a producer role in Afterlife, the franchise remained in the family, with Jason Reitman taking over as director. Interestingly, Ivan stood in for Ramis and wore digital makeup to play Egon.
Ivan Reitman’s passing in 2022 means he never got to see Frozen Empire, although the movie ends with a simple credit that reads, “For Ivan.” This isn’t the only nod to the departed director, as Paul Rudd’s Gary Grooberson suggests the team watched Cannibal Girls — Reitman’s 1973 grindhouse horror comedy.
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“THIS MAN HAS NO DICK!”
Every movie needs a good villain, and while Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has Garraka the fear monster, let’s not forget William Atherton’s Walter Peck. If you’re wondering where you recognize Atherton from, he played the overzealous Peck in the first Ghostbusters.
Having been promoted from Environmental Protection Agency inspector to New York City Mayor, Peck is considered the “real villain” of Frozen Empire. Peck was hounded in his post-Ghostbusters years, with people trying to fight him in bars and a bus of schoolchildren reportedly shouting, “Hey dickless” at him.
We see this play out in Frozen Empire, and when Peck tries to put them behind bars at the end of the movie, someone from the crowd heckles him as “dickless”. Up there with Imelda Staunton’s Professor Umbridge and Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa, Walter Peck is one of those guys we love to hate.
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HE SLIMED ME
Like the Stay Puft critters, it wouldn’t be a Ghostbusters movie without Slimer. This homage to John Belushi (who was originally tipped to play Venkman) was only referred to as Onionhead Ghost in the first movie but was finally called Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters cartoon.
Having appeared in the previous four Ghostbusters movies and getting a wife in 2016’s movie, Slimer gets an even bigger part here. Still hanging around at the Ghostbusters HQ, Slimer has something of a buddy comedy with Finn Wolfhard’s Trevor Spengler.
When Trevor tries to exorcize Slimer from the firehouse attic, we get a recreation of the iconic “He slimed me” scene from 1984’s Ghostbusters. Frozen Empire gave Slimer a first, and speaking to /Film, Special Effects Department Head John Van Der Pool explained, “[Slimer’s] a proper celebrity and a classic character, but all the previous films have never managed to achieve sliming in camera.”
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A NEW EGON
Having seemingly learned from the mistakes of Afterlife and complaints that the 2021 movie “desecrated” Ramis’ memory by having a ghostly apparition of Egon appear, there are only subtle references to the absent Ghostbuster.
While the Spengler name continues in the form of Phoebe, Trevor, and Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), it’s Phoebe that really takes on her father’s legacy as the brains of the outfit. Still, there’s some new blood in the form of James Acaster’s Lars Pinfield.
Working as one of Winston’s engineers, Lars is effectively the ‘new’ Egon, with an array of weird and wonderful inventions. Lars also has the same dry wit as Egon, and even though there’s still an Egon-shaped hole in the original lineup, Acaster is easily the movie’s best new addition.
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GHOSTBUSTERS 6?
At the time of writing, there’s no news on whether there will be a sixth Ghostbusters, although Kenan told The Hollywood Reporter about plans for a Phoebe Spengler Saga. Despite Columbia Pictures founding the Ghost Corps banner in 2015 to oversee an expanded Ghostbusters media franchise, we’re yet to see much come from it.
The Frozen Empire post-credit scene doesn’t exactly cue up a sequel, featuring an army of tiny Stay Puft critters hijacking a truck and giving us some real Gremlins vibes. Frozen Empire’s Rotten Tomatoes scores are also a mixed bag, with critics awarding it a paltry 43% and audiences loving it a lot more with 86%.
We’d liked to have seen a little more of the old guard, but it’s clear that the emphasis is shifting to a new generation of Ghostbusters. Speaking to THR, Akyroyd has hinted that we could finally make the most of the Ghost Corps name and go on a globe-trotting adventure. “We like New York, but it’s not to say that we couldn’t make New York the base and travel off somewhere else,” says Aykroyd. “Hey, there are ghosts around the world.”
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Chapman: 12 Things You Probably Never Knew About the Ghostbusters Movies
Based in Manchester, UK, Tom Chapman has over seven years’ experience covering everything from dragons to Demogorgons. Starting out with a stint at Movie Pilot in Berlin, Tom has since branched out to indulge his love of all things Star Wars and the MCU at Digital Spy, Den of Geek, IGN, Yahoo! and more. These days, you’ll find Tom channelling his inner Gale Weathers and ranting about how HBO did us dirty with Game of Thrones Season Eight.
