New York falls under a spectral “death chill” in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire teaser

A mysterious evil force has put New York City into a deadly deep freeze in the first official teaser for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Jason Reitman's much-anticipated follow-up to his successful 2021 sequel, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. (Jason is the son of the late Ivan Reitman, who directed the first two films in the franchise in the 1980s, so it's very much a family affair.) (Spoilers for Ghostbusters: Afterlife below.) Afterlife introduced us to a new generation of ghostbusters descended from Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis), namely, the science-loving Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and her mechanically inclined brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). Mom Callie (Carrie Coon), aka Egon's daughter, moved the family out to Oklahoma when she inherited Egon's old house. The kids discovered their grandfather's old ghost-busting gear just in time to battle the attempted return of none other than Gozer the Gozerian from the original 1984 film. As I wrote in my review, there was much to like about Ghostbusters: Afterlife: great performances, nimble direction, and some humorous callbacks to the original beloved film, like a tiny army of mini Stay-Puft marshmallow men causing chaos in the local Walmart. Unfortunately, all of that sank under the weight of a clunky script, a tired, predictable plot (Gozer? Again?), and a finale that took the fan service to downright treacly levels when the three remaining original Ghostbusters joined the fight (with a brief CGI appearance by the ghost of Egon). This was not a broadly popular take at the time, but I stand by it. It's not like Afterlife needed my approval, grossing over $200 million at the box office against its $75 million production budget. Sony announced the sequel the following spring, with a script by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan. Kenan would eventually replace Reitman as director. Per the official premise: