Jason Reitman Shares New Details on GHOSTBUSTERS: NIGHT SHIFT and It Sounds Awesome
The Ghostbusters franchise is getting ready to expand in a big way, and after hearing what Jason Reitman had to say about Ghostbusters: Night Shift, it's hard not to get excited.
While horror fans have plenty of terrifying movies to look forward to, Netflix's upcoming animated series is shaping up to be something special for longtime Ghostbusters fans.
Rather than telling a disconnected story, Ghostbusters: Night Shift is designed to fit directly into the franchise's established timeline. It's filling in one of the biggest unexplored gaps in Ghostbusters history, and according to Reitman, everything connects seamlessly with the films fans already know.
Speaking about how the series fits into the larger franchise, Reitman explained: “Night Shift is very specifically set within the larger context of the Ghostbusters stories. You’ll be able to watch the movies, come into the show, watch more movies and never miss a beat. It all links up.”
That's great news for fans who want the animated series to actually matter within the overall mythology instead of existing as its own separate thing. It sounds like Night Shift is being treated as another chapter in the ongoing Ghostbusters story.
Reitman is executive producing the series alongside Gil Kenan, who co-wrote Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and directed Frozen Empire.
Dan Aykroyd is also serving as an executive producer, while Ben Hibon and Elliott Kalan are leading the series as showrunners. The animation team that worked on Stranger Things: Tales from '85 is bringing the show to life, and the first images released already showcase some fantastic-looking animation.
The idea for Night Shift actually came together while Reitman and Kenan were developing Ghostbusters: Afterlife. As they built that film's story, they realized there was an entire era of Ghostbusters history that had never been explored.
Reitman said: “We gave ourselves a mystery to solve. We thought of this young girl who found a proton pack in a barn, and we were trying to figure out who she was, how’d she wind up there, how did this proton pack get there.
“Wait a second, what about that whole decade in between? What happened in the ’90s? That was the birth of this show.”
That setup opens the door to a fascinating period in the franchise. Fans have spent decades wondering what happened between the original adventures and Afterlife, and now it looks like we're finally going to get some answers.
The creative team is still keeping most of the characters under wraps. What we do know is that the central group consists of Ghostbusters in their early 20s. That certainly suggests a new generation carrying on the legacy after learning from the original team of Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore.
Whether the original characters appear throughout the series remains a mystery, but it certainly feels like there will be connections. And honestly, I wouldn't complain if Janine got a much bigger role as well.
Fans of The Real Ghostbusters will also be interested to hear that the classic animated series helped inspire the creative team, but don't expect a nostalgic retread. Reitman says the goal was to capture the spirit of the 1984 movie while taking advantage of everything modern animation can offer.
He said: “Anyone who’s coming into this animated series thinking they’re about to watch the series from the ’80s, oh, are they in for a surprise. It is funnier, it is scarier.
“The visuals are incredibly dynamic, and it does the thing that that first film in ’84 did, which is you come in thinking, okay, maybe I’ll have a laugh, and then it spooks the sh-t out of you.”
That combination of comedy, supernatural horror, and fast-paced action is exactly what has always made Ghostbusters work at its best. If Night Shift can capture even a piece of that original movie's magic while expanding the mythology in meaningful ways, it could become one of the franchise's most exciting additions.
Personally, I doubt anything in the series is going to genuinely scare me, but if it can deliver fun ghost-hunting adventures, memorable new characters, and a few creepy supernatural surprises along the way, I'll happily sign up for every episode.
Ghostbusters: Night Shift is set to premiere on Netflix later this year, and after these latest comments from Reitman, this animated series has become one of my most anticipated Ghostbusters projects yet.