Netflix Is Getting A Brand New Ghostbusters Series

Jason Reitman was attached to produce the Netflix Ghostbusters animated series, and while the new announcement doesn’t mention any of the talent attached, he’s presumably still involved. Jason Reitman is the son of original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman and directed, co-wrote, and produced Ghostbusters: Afterlife. He also produced and co-wrote 2024’s Frozen Empire.

Netflix’s Ghostbusters animated series is not the first time the franchise has delved into animation. The 1980s animated series, The Real Ghostbusters, is by far the most popular show and ran for seven seasons and 140 episodes. The series followed the original four Ghostbusters, their secretary Janine, their accountant Louis, and their mascot, Slimer.

Along with being an entertaining series, The Real Ghostbusters is also known for making Slimer a more popular character. Slimer even got his own sub-series in the fourth season of the show, with a half-hour time slot of Slimer! animated shorts. Of course, this series also coincided with the release of the popular Hi-C Ecto Cooler tie-in drink, which the Netflix Ghostbusters series should definitely bring back, too.

The Real Ghostbusters would eventually get a sequel series with Extreme Ghostbusters in the 1990s, though this series was far less successful. Extreme Ghostbusters only ran for one season and followed a new team of college-aged Ghostbusters led by Egon Spengler. It seems likely that the Netflix animated Ghostbusters series won’t be a sequel to the previous two animated projects and instead will likely take place in the current timeline established by the Afterlife and Frozen Empire films.

The Netflix Ghostbusters animated series is far from the only Ghostbusters project in the works, as the franchise is juggling several potential film and TV projects. In 2015, Ivan Reitman announced an animated film from the perspective of the ghosts, and the project was later reconfirmed in 2022 with Jennifer Kluska and Chris Prynoski attached as directors. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller also stated in 2022 that they were attached to a potential spin-off film in the early stages of its development and that the film could come to fruition sometime in the future.

There are also a couple of other Ghostbusters TV shows potentially in the works, with Dan Aykroyd saying he wrote a prequel series that has Jason Reitman involved in the development process. The prequel would take place in New Jersey in 1969 and show the original characters meeting as teenagers in high school.

None of these projects have any definitive announcements at this time, so it seems likely that the recent “coming soon” announcement from Sony indicates that the Netflix Ghostbusters project should be the next project we can expect to see from the franchise.