"We are doing things in this film that we've never done in a Ghostbusters film before," enthused Gil Kenan as the director and co-writer discussed Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. "Some of those leaps that felt necessary dramatically are still risks because they're sort of going outside the normal playbook of a Ghostbusters film."
The filmmaker understood how big of a deal that was as he didn't want to go down in cinema history as the guy who broke the beloved multimillion-dollar franchise. This latest entry is likely to be the one to tip the 40-year-old film series over the billion-dollar mark – the films have grossed $943.7 million to date.
"The stakes are much higher than we've had in a Ghostbusters film before, including loss of life that is irrecoverable. That suggests a peril that if it hadn't worked, could have broken the model," Kenan explained. "The other thing is that we are, for the first time, getting to know a ghost on the other end of the proton, the business end. We're having a backstory and a relationship with a ghost as an audience in a way that could upend the entire paradigm of Ghostbusters."
"The ghosts in the first stories were essentially vermin that were being exterminated, so it was a dramatic opportunity that allowed us to start to stretch the fabric of these movies and what they could be. We did that in a way that excited us when we were writing this film. While we're focusing on the core dynamics of what makes an enjoyable, joyful experience as a Ghostbusters film for an audience, it still creates what I think is an expansion of some of the basic concepts in a way that maybe will allow more richness to the stories in the future."
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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire lands in theaters almost two and a half years after Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the franchise reviver that connected the story back to its roots. A hit with fans and most critics, it grossed $204.3 million against a $75 million budget. Kenan co-wrote that with director Jason Reitman, the son of Ivan Reitman, the filmmaker who helmed Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. Ivan Reitman sadly passed away in 2022, but not before he gave Kenan his approval when he told him where they wanted to take the films.
"It was a huge validation," the director explained. Jason Reitman moved into the role of producer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. "Ivan was really moved by certain parts of the story including Melody, one of the ghosts. I remember the joy in his eyes, as he started to understand where we were taking that particular storyline. It gave us the confidence to plow forward with that narrative, and I'm proud that we could write and then create a ghost character that takes us to a new place in these stories."
The Ghostbusters brand is one of cinema's most well-known and recognizable IPs. Kenan has previous experience handling such things with one film in the franchise already under his belt and having directed the 2015 Poltergeist redo. He also directed an episode of the Scream TV series. So, what is different working with the Ghostbusters IP compared to the others?
"It's unique in so many ways," he said. "First of all, Ghostbusters, as much as anything, is a definition of tone, and that's important because that's the linchpin of getting these films right. You've got to be able to tap into that interplay between the light and the dark. The other thing that is special about Ghostbusters is it's such a simple and pure concept that the first film posited with the world and changed culture. It also changed the face of movies as we know them but there haven't been that many stories."
"This is very different from other IPs where there have been decades of various retooling of things, interpretations, and reconfigurations. Essentially, we're talking about one core film that gave birth to a couple of other films over 40 years. Obviously, there were The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters; both are valid and vital in the canon of this franchise, but at the end of the day, we're still just talking about a handful of characters and locations that define the legacy. That creates a huge opportunity in expanding the storytelling because it means so much has not been explored yet, but also certain important foundations that you would do well to respect, keep your eye on, and keep one toe on if you want to do right by the films that have come before."
An appreciation of the Ghostbusters' heritage is brilliantly spotlighted in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, serving as a nudge and wink for fans and a smart cheat sheet for the uninitiated via a news package sequence.
"There were no meetings about it, but I had a pretty good idea about how to do it," Kenan revealed. "I talked to my editors about how to craft it. I found some clips, and they found some clips. We assembled it, and it came together. It was honestly such a gesture of joy for the effect of Ghostbusters on us as movie fans. I grew up with that cereal as a commercial that I would watch on television. I grew up with that music video with Ray Parker Jr. strutting down Times Square with the Ghostbusters."
"In a way, it created a through line between the experience of being a fan of Ghostbusters and being a storyteller in Ghostbusters. That was a bridge between those two worlds and I felt like I was straddling those lines every day making this film. In some ways, it was a handy barometer for me to gut-check where to go in terms of how far to push in one direction or another. There was always that seven-year-old version of me sitting in a movie theater experiencing Ghostbusters for the first time that I could draw on for a tone check."
More of the original film's cast returns to Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which was filmed primarily in London, even though it is set in New York. Among the familiar faces is William Atherton as po-faced politician Mayor Walter Peck. Did the lifelong Ghostbusters fan get nervous about reviving the iconic character?
"First of all, William is the sweetest man I've met in a long time. As an actor and a human, he's a kind, loving, warm person," Kenan mused. "I had a series of conversations with him. The first was when I called him to offer up the idea that we would bring him into this next installment of the stories and then talk to him a bit more in preparation for his coming out to the UK to film his role. All of those were such pleasant conversations that I began to worry that maybe the years had softened him and maybe he's just lived a life of too much comfort and the William Atherton who showed up wouldn't have that killer instinct."
"It was all pleasantries and positive, and he got on set; I showed him the basic blocking of that first scene. In the very first take, he looked up, and as the chair swiveled, I saw the ice-cold glimmer of an assassin. Right there, it was Walter Peck in the flesh. He was instantly able to summon that persona dripping with sardonic judgment. He was cutting right through the Spengler standing across from him. It was a sight to behold, and in one second, I knew it would be okay, and we had our Peck."
Something else that the director and co-writer wanted to bring to the table when he took the helm was making sure some of the classic filmmaking and camera techniques used when the original came out in 1984 were utilized in his vision. Here, he covered everything from using mattes (the process of combining two or more image elements into a single, final image) to replicating sonic characteristics.
"That tactile sense of pulling back that curtain and allowing a bit of the movie magic to feel a bit more like a participant in the storytelling process rather than an invisible element," Kenan explained. "It does create the sort of charm of the experience of growing up with Ghostbusters films in a time of movie magic maturing to the golden age of blue screen work and compositing work. It's an art form that began in Georges Méliès' days but came into full maturity in the 1980s and has evolved dramatically in the digital era. All of the great tenets of how to do that properly matured right around the time the first Ghostbusters film came out; that sense of the image appearing before your eyes is just as important as a puppet's performance, feeling like there's a human soul behind it. It is part and parcel with the experience for the audience feeling like they're getting an authentic Ghostbusters experience."
"It's the same as bringing back original instrumentation like the ondes Martenot being played as a voice that feels like an authentic musical signature to these films. Then there is the Yamaha DX7, a synthesizer that was obsolete minutes after the first soundtrack was recorded in 1984. Bringing back that original instrument and having Peter Bernstein, the son of Elmer Bernstein, who was the orchestrator of that first score, and playing those notes on that instrument was foundational to my approach to how to best capture the spirit of Ghostbusters, no pun intended."
But did the filmmaker bite off more than he could chew at times when trying to keep it as real as possible?
"There were a couple of things. I tried to puppeteer the pizza with rods, so I had puppeteers try to move a possessed pizza with these sticks, and that became a bridge too far for the speed and precision I needed that blocking to work at," Kenan laughed. "Another hugely inspirational and instrumental one that needed to be reworked was the trash bag that becomes inhabited by the possessor ghosts in our library sequence. Arjen Tuiten, who created Slimer's puppet and the librarian ghost puppet for this film, worked up an ingenious maquette for a puppeteer to have two feet into a trash bag they could run with and manipulate. It was hilarious to watch, but untenable as a way of creating the performance because there were so many stairs. The blocking meant it was not ever going to be feasible, so it was hugely inspiring, and it worked as a literal benchmark we had to hit with animation, but it needed to be reworked digitally. It looks great though, so I’m very happy."
