Plot
After uncovering their family legacy in Summerville, Oklahoma, Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) and her children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) relocate to the old firehouse in Manhattan that once served as the headquarters of the Ghostbusters. With Callie's partner Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), the family takes over the ghostbusting operation full time, living and working out of the firehouse under one roof. Their return to active duty draws the disapproval of Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), a longtime adversary of the original team who is unhappy to see the Ghostbusters back in business and tearing up the city in pursuit of spirits. After a chaotic chase through Manhattan ends with property damage and a near miss involving a child on a bicycle, Peck seizes on Phoebe's age to bar her from field work, since at fifteen she is legally a minor. Sidelined and resentful, she drifts away from the family.
Family friend "Podcast" (Logan Kim) and original Ghostbuster Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) run an internet program called "Repossessed" out of Ray's occult bookstore, examining secondhand objects for signs of paranormal possession. The premise of the show is that objects can hold spirits and energy, a property the film calls psychometric value. Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani) arrives looking to sell off his late grandmother's belongings and brings in a tarnished brass orb. Ray senses unusual energy in it, and after consulting Dr. Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt) at the firehouse's research partners, they learn the orb is a prison holding Garraka, an ancient horned entity from the time before recorded history. Garraka is said to command an army of the dead and to kill with a power the film calls the Death Chill, freezing its victims in fear.
The Spengler household is strained by ordinary growing pains layered on top of the family's secret double life. Phoebe, pushed out of the field, spends her nights alone and strikes up a friendship with Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), a teenage girl she meets in the park who turns out to be a ghost, the lingering spirit of a girl who died in a tenement fire decades earlier. Trevor, now eighteen and wanting to be treated as an adult, busies himself trying to capture Slimer, the gluttonous green spirit that has taken up residence in the firehouse attic.
The expanded operation is backed by far more infrastructure than the original team ever had. Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), now a wealthy businessman, has funded the Paranormal Research Center, a facility where engineers develop next-generation containment and detection gear. The research team is led by Lars Pinfield (James Acaster), with Lucky Domingo (Celeste O'Connor) serving as an intern studying the captured spirits. The Center has built a vast new holding system that can move trapped ghosts off-site, but the original containment unit in the firehouse basement is dangerously overfull after forty years of use, and the stress on the aging grid becomes a recurring danger. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) drops back into the team's orbit and takes an interest in the Razmaadi orb and in Nadeem himself, pressing the question of why the object holds so much energy.
Garraka's influence spreads. The entity feeds on fear and works to shatter the firehouse containment grid so it can absorb the trapped ghosts into its own army and use the Death Chill to drag New York into an unending winter. Phoebe, manipulated through her loneliness, is briefly tricked into helping Melody and is possessed, and the strained family must come together to save her and the city. The extended group, the Spenglers, Gary, Podcast, Nadeem, Ray, the research team, and the returning veterans Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Winston, and Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts), converges on the firehouse for a final stand. Nadeem learns that he descends from a line of Fire Masters whose heat is the natural counter to Garraka's cold, and he takes up his grandmother's brass armor to fight. Phoebe reinforces a proton pack with brass plating to withstand the entity, and the team converts the ruptured containment unit into an oversized trap. Melody helps weaken Garraka before passing on to the afterlife, and the combined assault drives the entity back into containment, sparing the city from the deep freeze.
Development
Talk of a follow-up to Afterlife began almost as soon as that film reached theaters. In October 2021 Ernie Hudson said he had heard a new entry was being written, and that December Gil Kenan described himself and Jason Reitman as being in active, detailed conversations about where the franchise might go next. Sony's Tom Rothman confirmed in April 2022 that an Afterlife sequel was in the works.
On Ghostbusters Day, June 8, 2022, Reitman and Kenan announced that they were writing the film, gave it the codename "Firehouse," and framed it as the next chapter of the Spengler family story. The pair said they had worked out the broad shape of the story before Afterlife was even finished, and that they had shared their plans, both for the Spenglers and for the wider world of the series, with Reitman's father Ivan Reitman before his death in February 2022. The elder Reitman, who directed the 1984 film and its sequel, had served as a producer on Afterlife, and the partnership of his son with Kenan carried the franchise's creative direction forward after his passing. They also confirmed that Hudson would return as Winston Zeddemore and that his company would figure heavily in the franchise's future. Later in June, Sony set a theatrical release date of December 20, 2023.
The story deliberately reversed the geography of Afterlife, returning the Spenglers from the Oklahoma farmland of the previous film to the original firehouse on the corner of North Moore and Varick Streets in Tribeca. Kenan and Reitman framed the move as bringing the franchise home, both literally and tonally, after Afterlife had introduced the new family in a rural setting far from the city most associated with the series. The decision to base the film at the firehouse drove much of the production design and the choice to reunite a larger share of the surviving original cast on familiar ground.
Casting and crew details accumulated through the second half of 2022. Trade listings named Helen Estabrook and Eric Reich among the producers, with Michael Beugg as line producer and John Papsidera as casting director, and circulated an early logline describing Ecto-1 driving back into Manhattan as the place where the story begins. Mckenna Grace confirmed her return as Phoebe Spengler in October. In December 2022 it was announced that Kenan would direct, with the principal Afterlife cast, including Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon, set to reprise their roles and Reitman serving as writer and producer. Finn Wolfhard said around the same time that he had read an early draft, and noted that the production did not yet have a title.
In March 2023 the supporting cast was filled out with the additions of Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Emily Alyn Lind, and James Acaster. Nanjiani called the script very strong and hinted that his role would move the world of the series forward. In a string of interviews through the spring, Aykroyd described the film's central conceit, the idea that objects can hold spirits and energy, and confirmed that he would make a full appearance and that Acaster's character was one of the developers of new ghostbusting equipment. Aykroyd singled out the production design for praise, recounting that the crew had built a full replica of the firehouse on a stage, including a recreation of the corner of Varick and North Moore Street. Hudson repeatedly emphasized that Winston's wealth would let the team take its work further, funding a research operation that broadens the scope of the franchise, and described working again with Murray, Aykroyd, and Potts as a homecoming. Sigourney Weaver confirmed in May 2023 that she had not been asked to appear.
The film passed through several working and reported titles. "Firehouse" remained the codename, while "Hell's Kitchen" surfaced as an internal label that leaked online and was later disowned by the production. A title resembling "The New Ice Age" was inferred from a German promotional note in October 2023, and reports briefly floated "Frozen Kingdom," before "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" was confirmed as the final title late that month.
Casting
Frozen Empire keeps the full Afterlife ensemble at its center. Mckenna Grace returns as Phoebe Spengler, granddaughter of Egon Spengler, and the script foregrounds her more than the previous film did, building the central arc around her age, her isolation, and her friendship with the ghost girl Melody. Finn Wolfhard returns as her older brother Trevor, Carrie Coon as their mother Callie, and Paul Rudd as Gary Grooberson, Callie's partner and a former teacher now folded into the family. Logan Kim returns as Phoebe's friend "Podcast" and Celeste O'Connor as Lucky Domingo, both now drawn into Winston's wider operation.
The film brought back more of the surviving original cast than Afterlife had. Dan Aykroyd returns as Ray Stantz, this time in an expanded role running an occult bookstore and the "Repossessed" web series, and Ernie Hudson returns as Winston Zeddemore, reframed as the wealthy benefactor underwriting the Paranormal Research Center. Bill Murray returns as Peter Venkman and Annie Potts as Janine Melnitz. William Atherton reprises Walter Peck, the team's antagonist from the 1984 film, now installed as Mayor of New York. Aykroyd, who had written Egon for the late Harold Ramis, again declined to recast the character, with Egon's legacy carried through Phoebe and the firehouse rather than a stand-in.
The new additions joined in March 2023. Kumail Nanjiani plays Nadeem Razmaadi, a feckless heir who turns out to descend from a line of Fire Masters; Patton Oswalt plays Dr. Hubert Wartzki, a researcher specializing in ancient paranormal history; Emily Alyn Lind plays Melody, the teenage ghost who befriends Phoebe; and British comedian James Acaster plays Lars Pinfield, the lead engineer at Winston's research center. Aykroyd noted that Acaster's character was conceived as one of the inventors of the next generation of gear. Nanjiani, who said the script impressed him before he signed on, hinted in early interviews that his role would push the franchise's mythology in a new direction, foreshadowing the Fire Master lineage that drives the film's climax.
The casting reflected a deliberate balance between the established players and the newer family. By bringing back Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson, Potts, and Atherton while continuing the arcs of Grace, Wolfhard, Coon, Rudd, Kim, and O'Connor, the production assembled one of the largest principal casts in the series. That breadth, praised in the lead-up as a full reunion, later became one of the most common points of criticism, with reviewers arguing that the ensemble had outgrown the space available to develop any single character.
Filming
Pre-production
Pre-production was underway at studios in southern England by early 2023, where the firehouse was rebuilt as a full standing set. One of the Ecto-1 cars from Afterlife, previously displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, was shipped to the United Kingdom in February 2023. Construction crews undertook substantial set work, including roughly sixty meters of tiling for the firehouse interior. Jason Reitman documented the build on social media, posting photographs of himself and Kenan inside the firehouse set as it took shape.
Principal photography
Principal photography ran from late March to mid-June 2023, based at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden with additional stage work at facilities around southern England, including Shinfield Studios in Reading and Winnersh Film Studios in Wokingham. The first day of shooting took place on March 20, 2023, with Kenan and Reitman photographed outside the firehouse set holding the clapperboard for the opening scene. A separate logo was commissioned to mark the film's United Kingdom production.
Location work in and around London doubled for New York for much of the shoot. Exterior sequences were filmed at sites such as the St. James's Park Underground station and the adjacent 55 Broadway building in April 2023, and a street dressed with references to the fictional Manhattan City Bank was shot at Canary Wharf in early June. A second unit also worked in the United States. Ecto-1 stunt-driving rehearsals, including bicycle-ramming gags, were staged in a parking lot at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey in late May 2023, around the time of a scheduling conflict with concerts at the venue.
Anchoring all of this was the standing firehouse set built in England, which Aykroyd described as a full interior replica of the real building down to the exterior corner where North Moore meets Varick Street. Recreating the firehouse on a stage, rather than relying on the actual Tribeca location, gave the production control over the long interior sequences, the basement containment room, and the attic where Slimer lives, and it let the crew stage the destruction the climax demanded without damaging a working New York landmark. The decision also reduced the need for location shooting in Manhattan to mostly exterior and driving footage, which the second unit handled separately.
The New York second-unit shoot took place over the first half of June 2023, much of it focused on Ecto-1 driving footage. Crews captured the car traveling along Fifth Avenue between roughly 17th and 23rd Streets, around City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan, and through the Canal Street and Broome Street area of SoHo and the Lower East Side, with stunt sequences that included a car-crash gag on Church Street. A beach sequence involving special effects was filmed at Coney Island. Some of the United States location filming used a production cover name on neighborhood notices. Eric Reich reported that principal photography in London wrapped on June 23, 2023, after which the firehouse set was dismantled. Hudson confirmed in early July that the shoot was complete.
Music
Dario Marianelli composed the score, his second film for Gil Kenan after the 2021 family fantasy A Boy Called Christmas. Marianelli is best known for his work on period dramas, including the score for Atonement (2007), for which he won the Academy Award, and earlier collaborations with director Joe Wright on Pride and Prejudice (2005) and Anna Karenina (2012). His genre credits include Bumblebee (2018), giving him experience scoring a large effects-driven property.
For Frozen Empire, Marianelli worked within the shadow of Elmer Bernstein, whose 1984 theme is one of the most recognizable elements of the franchise. The score quotes and develops Bernstein's original material while building new themes for Garraka and the younger characters, balancing the comedic warmth of the original against the colder, more menacing tone of the new threat. Peter Bernstein, Elmer Bernstein's son, consulted on the music, and the sessions made use of period electronic instruments, including the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer that helped define the sound of 1980s film scores.
Sony Music Masterworks, through Sony Classical, released the original motion picture soundtrack digitally on the film's opening day, March 22, 2024, with a CD edition following in early April. As with previous entries, Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" theme song plays over the end credits. Marianelli's score was later recognized on the awards circuit; at the ASCAP London ceremony in June 2025 it won Top Box Office Film of the Year.
Post-production
Editing began over the summer of 2023; Kenan noted in August that he had assembled a first cut under the "Firehouse" codename. The 2023 Hollywood labor disputes, which halted promotion and some production across the industry, pushed the release back from December 2023 to March 29, 2024, and a round of additional photography was scheduled once the strikes ended. Those reshoots took place in and around Atlanta, Georgia, in early December 2023, with Mckenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Celeste O'Connor, Annie Potts, Dan Aykroyd, Kumail Nanjiani, and others taking part across closed-set work in the city and in nearby Newnan. Grace later described finishing the final reshoots in Atlanta around midnight before flying out the same morning for a convention appearance.
Scoring and sound work continued into early 2024 at Sony's studios in Los Angeles. Editor Nathan Orloff declared post-production complete on March 3, 2024. Orloff characterized the editorial approach as a return toward the tone of the 1984 film, in contrast to Afterlife's effort to set itself apart from the original.
Release
Sony moved the release forward in January 2024, settling on March 22, 2024, for the United States. The world premiere was held in New York on March 14, 2024, drawing the returning original cast and the Afterlife ensemble; a London premiere followed the week of March 18, with a screening at the Vue cinema in Leicester Square on March 20. A range of special screenings accompanied the rollout, including a 35mm presentation at the Vista Theater in Hollywood and fan-organized events in the New York metropolitan area and in Toronto.
The film arrived on digital platforms on May 7, 2024, and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on June 25, 2024, in several editions, including retailer-exclusive packages and a two-film gift set pairing it with Afterlife. Under Sony's distribution arrangement, it began streaming on Netflix on July 22, 2024, as its first pay window, and started airing on FX on February 1, 2026. Netflix's exclusive streaming window for the film ran until late January 2026.
Box office
Frozen Empire carried a reported production budget of about $100 million. It earned roughly $4.7 million from Thursday preview screenings and about $16 million on its opening Friday, building to a domestic opening weekend of $45.0 million from 4,345 North American theaters, the top result of that weekend. Combined with an estimated $16.4 million from 25 international markets, where the United Kingdom led, its global opening stood at roughly $61 million. The domestic opening edged out the $44 million start of Afterlife, though trade analysts read the close result as a sign that the franchise had not grown much beyond its established fan base.
Domestic business continued through the spring. The film took in about $15.7 million in its second weekend and crossed $100 million worldwide by the end of March 2024. It surpassed $175 million globally by late April and reached the $200 million mark in late May 2024, on its tenth weekend of release. Its final figures, as reported by Box Office Mojo, were $113,376,590 in North America and $88,590,931 internationally, for a worldwide total of $201,967,521. That made Frozen Empire the lowest-grossing entry in the main franchise, though every prior Ghostbusters film had also cleared $200 million globally. The opening weekend pushed the series past $1 billion in combined worldwide ticket sales across its history.
Critical reception
Critical reaction was mixed to negative, and the film drew the weakest reviews of any entry in the main series. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it held a 42 percent approval rating from 302 critics, with an average score of 5.2 out of 10, making it the lowest-rated of the five films on the site. On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, it scored 46 out of 100 from 50 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews.
Reviewers most often faulted the film for an overcrowded cast. With the entire Afterlife ensemble, several returning members of the original team, and a slate of new characters all sharing the runtime, many critics felt the story spread itself too thin and gave few characters room to develop. The central threat of Garraka and the impending ice age was frequently described as underdeveloped, with the entity functioning more as a plot device than a memorable villain. Several critics also noted a tonal mismatch, arguing that the film leaned more serious and somber than the comedy its premise promised, and that it relied heavily on callbacks and nostalgia rather than fresh ideas. Praise, where it appeared, tended to go to the production design and the faithful recreation of the firehouse, to individual performances, particularly Mckenna Grace's, and to the simple pleasure of seeing the surviving original cast share the screen with the new generation.
Audience response was warmer than the critical reception. Opening-weekend audiences gave the film a B+ grade from the survey firm CinemaScore, the same grade as the 2016 reboot but below the A- earned by Afterlife. Exit polling from PostTrak put the overall positive score around 80 percent, with about 64 percent of attendees saying they would definitely recommend it. On Rotten Tomatoes the audience score sat far above the critics' figure, in the high eighties. The gap between professional and audience reactions became a recurring theme in coverage of the film, with several outlets noting that long-time fans tended to embrace the return to the firehouse and the reunion of the cast even where reviewers found the story thin. The strong word of mouth among that core audience did little to widen the film's reach, however, and its overall box office trajectory tracked closely with Afterlife rather than expanding on it.
In December 2024 the film received four Saturn Award nominations: Best Fantasy Film, Best Younger Performer in a Film for Mckenna Grace, Best Film Music, and Best Film Costume Design.
Legacy
Frozen Empire reunites the surviving members of the original 1984 team with the Afterlife generation and formally returns the franchise to its New York roots and the original firehouse after Afterlife's rural Oklahoma setting. It also reframes the Ghostbusters as a larger, better-funded organization: Winston Zeddemore's success underwrites a dedicated Paranormal Research Center and engineering corps, expanding the series beyond the small family business at the heart of the previous film. Returning hardware such as the Ecto-1, the Proton Pack, the PKE Meter, and the containment unit appears alongside new equipment built for the expanded team, and the film positions the next generation of Spenglers as the engine for the franchise going forward.
The film's softer box office and reviews left the live-action series at a crossroads. Kenan and Reitman said afterward that they had further stories planned and that conversations with Sony about continuing the saga on the big screen were ongoing, while Aykroyd suggested in 2024 that future films might move past the original cast entirely, a position he softened in later remarks. Alongside any live-action follow-up, Sony and Netflix put an animated Ghostbusters feature and a connected animated series into development, broadening the franchise across both the theatrical and streaming sides.
References
- Box Office Mojo, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire box office totals
- Variety, opening weekend box office report
- Deadline, preview-night grosses and franchise milestone
- Collider, global box office passes $200 million
- Rotten Tomatoes, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire critics and audience scores
- Metacritic, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire critic score
- Wikipedia, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (reception, plot, home media)
- Wikipedia, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (soundtrack)
- Ghostbusters News, Dario Marianelli to compose the score
- Movie Music UK, review of Marianelli's score
- The Hollywood Reporter, opening weekend and CinemaScore
- MovieWeb, Gil Kenan on a future Ghostbusters film
- Screen Rant, franchise future after Frozen Empire
