Sony Pictures and Ghost Corps put on quite a show last night, as a Marvel Studios-like presentation and screening kicked off the first annual (yes, they’ve got the drive to do this once a year) Ecto-Fest celebration. Cast and crew from the films, Sony Pictures employees, lucky fans, and members of the press were all on-hand for the festivities which included announcements, teases, and a booming outdoor encore screening of Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
The evening began with a wonderful behind the scenes featurette with b-roll footage of Ernie Hudson arriving at the Ladder 23 filming location in downtown Los Angeles to film the “end tag” scene from Afterlife.
The featurette served as an introduction for the man who needs no introduction, Ernie Hudson himself. Dressed in a power suit that would make the chairman of Zeddemore Industries proud, Hudson revealed that the Sony lot will forever remember Ivan Reitman by naming the street in which Ghost Corps and the Ecto-1 are parked “Ivan Reitman Way.” Hudson then teased that the future for Ghostbusters was in good hands and, “I’m not allowed to tell you much more than that, but rest assured, we have a lot of Ghostbusting ahead. I’ll just say, if need be, the flight suit still fits.”
With that, the floor was turned over to Hasbro where Jenny Whitlock unveiled a limited to two edition of an Ivan Reitman Plasma Series action figure. One of which will reside at Ghost Corps’ office in Culver City, and the second will be auctioned off for Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles at a later date.
Following that, Whitlock gave backers a glimpse at progress for the Spengler Proton Pack HasLab that was offered up for pre-sale crowd funding. The biggest reveals are that the Pack will weigh a mere 15-pounds and will be light on fans’ backs, includes real metal parts including the switches and Clippard Valves, and the Spengler Journal that was offered as an incentive will be double the page count than expected. A larger update is available on the Hasbro Pulse blog with photos of the most recent prototypes and more.
Next up was the head of Sony Pictures VR, Jake Zim (with special guest Logan Kim) who offered updates on their Meta VR experience and unveiled a new installation VR arcade called “Ghostbusters VR Academy,” which will be a two-story, two-part experience that allows players to train to be Ghostbusters and drive the Ecto-1 like a pro. The first part of the experience is a first-person perspective where you don a Proton Pack with a haptic feedback vest and capture ghosts in a team of four players. Following that, players head downstairs where they’re put in the driver’s seat for a simulated joyride of a new hover-prototype Ecto-1 through three levels of competition. The installation will be available at 400+ Hologate locations around the world later this year.
Zim and Kim yielded the floor to a filmed message from Dan Aykroyd himself, who taped a message from his family farmhouse. It is the same family farmhouse where his spiritualist great-grandfather served as the inspiration for Ghostbusters. Aykroyd teased that we’re all invested in the future of Ghostbusters, not just from an intellectual property and franchise perspective, but in the story that Afterlife opened up as well. We want to know what happened to Phoebe Spengler following the events at the Dirt Farm. We want to know what happened to the Ghostbusters in the time leading up to Afterlife and beyond. And with that, he was proud to announce the “spectral stewards and trusted keepers of the Cadillac keys” to the stage: Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan.
Reitman and Kenan had many announcements, all of which the running theme was inner-connectivity and a cohesive story that will fill in gaps, move the story into the future, and entertain Ghostbusters fans for years to come.
First up, the pair gave an update on the upcoming Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed console video game, which will allow players to compete either as Ghostbusters or as the ghosts themselves. Illfonic is working hard on the game for release later this year on consoles and PC.
Next, the first of the big reveals: Ghostbusters is returning to comics. Dark Horse Comics is the new license partner for Ghostbusters and Reitman and Kenan announced they are overseeing an in-canon mini-series that will be released at some point next year. A Variety article posted today says the Dark Horse series will bridge the gap between Afterlife and the upcoming sequel (more on that momentarily).
The duo then went on to announce the Ghostbusters animated feature film collaboration with Sony Pictures Animation has a creative team working hard on its development, and that the project was near and dear to the late Ivan Reitman’s heart. “This was a passion project of my father’s and it’s easy to understand why. The world of the unknown can only be properly explored through the limitless reach of animation,“ Jason Reitman told the crowd. Per Variety, Chris Prynoski (executive producer, “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe”) and Jennifer Kluska (“Hotel Transylvania: Transformania”) are set to direct, with Brenda Hsueh (supervising producer, “Disjointed”) on board to write. Not much about the film was revealed but there were hints that new characters would be introduced.
More animation news came after that, with an extension of the announcement from this morning that Sony and Ghost Corps have partnered with Netflix to create a new animated Ghostbusters series. Reitman and Kenan assured fans that the new series will navigate an unexplored era of the Ghostbusters canon, which will be intriguing. “Between gaming, comics, television, and movies, we are going to tell the untold history of Ghostbusters while reaching into the future with characters you haven’t met from places you haven’t gone,” said Kenan on the world’s they are exploring in building out the universe.
Last, but certainly not least, the creative pair provided an update on the next live action Ghostbusters film that they are feverishly writing now. Reitman reminded fans that the codename for Ghostbusters: Afterlife was Rust City, a security title that became very clear when the film was released as both the geographical location of where the story took place, but also symbolic of the characters and world we knew. Well, now that the rust has been shaken, Reitman and Kenan gleefully teased that the security title they’ve been using for the new film is Firehouse. While we’re not clear on what the story will be, the two proudly announced that Afterlife ended with the Ecto-1 pulling into the firehouse bay and that’s where the next story will start: back in New York City. Though many news blogs and pundits my scoff at the announcement of a film’s code name, the announcement spoke volumes: Ghostbusters will be back in New York, back in the firehouse, and ready to bust some heads. In a spiritual sense, of course.
The evening was capped off with an outdoor screening of Ghostbusters: Afterlife in the cool Los Angeles air, with booming sound and a rowdy audience cheering and engaged throughout.
If this is the first of many Ecto-Fests to come, one can only imagine the scope and announcements and reveals that may be in store June of 2023. Until then, we let our imaginations run free and hang on tight for the future. It’s going to be a wild ride.