‘Ghostbusters’ Animated Movie in the Works at Netflix

Sony is developing another new Ghostbusters movie, but this one will be a little different from the recent live-action films. The studio is once again set on expanding the franchise, this time with an animated Ghostbusters movie from Sony Animation – and Netflix. There’s gotta be a joke in there about crossing streams. See if you can figure it out.

According to Deadline, Sony is currently developing an animated Ghostbusters movie for Netflix. The project, which doesn’t have a title just yet, is reportedly in early development with director Kris Hearn and is said to be separate from Netflix’s upcoming Ghostbusters animated series. Hearn is a longtime animator who served as a storyboard artist on Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs before making his directorial debut with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. He also directed the animated filmThe Willoughbys, which Netflix released in 2020.

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Per the report, Sony execs think the new Ghostbusters animated movie “could do for the IP what the Beyond the Spider-Verse films have done for Spider-Man.” That desire is understandable given Sony’s struggles to leverage its Spider-Man rights into an extended universe of films based on classic (and not-so-classic) Spider-Man villains. The one area where Sony has seen immense success with the Spidey IP is in the Spider-Verse, with 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse grossing over $358.5 million worldwide and receiving near-universal acclaim for its immersive and inventive animation style. The sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, was released in June 2023 and nearly doubled its predecessor’s box-office gross with $690.8 million worldwide.

The third film in the planned trilogy, Beyond the Spider-Verse, was delayed from its ambitious release date of March 29, 2024. Sony has yet to give the sequel a new release date, though it might be a while as a recent report revealed that the original sequel plan was scrapped and rewritten from scratch.

‘Ghostbusters’ Has a Long History With Animation

This won’t be the first time the Ghostbusters transitioned from live action to animation. Following the success of 1984’s Ghostbusters, writers and stars Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd developed an animated spinoff series featuring the characters from the film. The Real Ghostbusters aired on ABC from 1986 to 1991, and featured Lorenzo Music (best known as the voice of Garfield) as Peter Venkman, Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler, Frank Welker as Ray Stentz, and Arsenio Hall as Winston Zeddemore. The series underwent a couple of changes during its run, with Full House star Dave Coulier replacing Music and Buster Jones of G.I. Jones and Transformers fame replacing Hall after Season 2. The series was retitled to Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters in Season 4.

Extreme Ghostbusters, a spinoff featuring Egon (still voiced by LaMarche), Janine, and Slimer, along with a new cast of characters, debuted in 1997. That series produced 40 episodes and ran for just one season.

Back in 2017, when Ghostbusters fandom was in a very precarious place following the misogynist backlash to Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, original director Ivan Reitman announced plans for various spinoffs seemingly in an effort to please disgruntled fans. One of those projects was an animated spinoff movie called Ecto Force, featuring a new team of Ghostbusters who travel the world busting ghosts in the year 2050. (Again, it was a weird time.)

Netflix’s Ghostbusters animated series was first announced in 2022, and remains in active development. Back in March, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire director Gil Kenan offered an update on the series, revealing that he’d seen a full presentation for the series and that scripts were being written.

You can stream the most recent film, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, on Netflix.

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