Sony is creating another Ghostbusters movie, but this one will be different from the live-action films. They’re expanding the franchise with an animated Ghostbusters movie, made in partnership with Netflix and Sony Animation. Maybe there’s a funny joke about “crossing streams” in there—can you think of one?
According to Deadline, this animated movie is still in the early stages and doesn’t have a title yet. It’s being directed by Kris Hearn, a talented animator who worked on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as a storyboard artist and directed its sequel. He also directed Netflix’s animated movie The Willoughbys in 2020. This project is separate from the Ghostbusters animated series Netflix is also working on.
Sony hopes the new animated Ghostbusters movie can achieve the same success as the Spider-Verse films did for Spider-Man. This makes sense since Sony has faced challenges creating a larger movie universe around Spider-Man and his villains.
Advertisement However, they’ve had huge success with the Spider-Verse movies. The first one, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), earned over $358 million worldwide and was loved for its creative animation. The sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), made an even bigger impact, earning $690 million globally.
The third movie in the trilogy, Beyond the Spider-Verse, was originally set to release on March 29, 2024, but has been delayed. Sony hasn’t announced a new release date yet, as reports say they’ve started over and rewritten the sequel from scratch.
This isn’t the first time Ghostbusters has gone from live action to animation. After the success of the 1984 movie, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, who wrote and starred in the film, created an animated series based on the characters. The Real Ghostbusters aired on ABC from 1986 to 1991. It featured Lorenzo Music (famous for voicing Garfield) as Peter Venkman, Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler, Frank Welker as Ray Stantz, and Arsenio Hall as Winston Zeddemore.
The show went through some changes over the years. Dave Coulier from Full House took over as the voice of Venkman, and Buster Jones, known for G.I. Joe and Transformers, replaced Hall after Season 2. By Season 4, the show was renamed Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters.
In 1997, another animated series called Extreme Ghostbusters premiered. It brought back Egon (voiced by LaMarche), Janine, and Slimer, along with a new team of Ghostbusters. This series ran for one season with 40 episodes.
In 2017, Ghostbusters fans were divided after Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters faced criticism, including some from people upset about the all-female team. To try and win back fans, original director Ivan Reitman announced plans for several spinoffs. One of these was an animated movie called Ecto Force. It was about a new group of Ghostbusters traveling the world in 2050 to fight ghosts. (Yeah, it was a strange time for the franchise.)
In 2022, Netflix announced plans for an animated Ghostbusters series, which is still being worked on. In March, Gil Kenan, the director of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, shared that he had seen a full presentation of the series and confirmed that the team is busy writing scripts.