Dan Aykroyd, the comedy legend known for playing paranormal expert Ray Stantz in the Ghostbusters series, and one of the creators of the series alongside Harold Ramis, has teased the future of the franchise. Although Ghostbusters isn’t extremely popular today, the fanbase is still strong, and those currently in charge of the series will again try to achieve success with yet another sequel.
The actor recently spoke to Aaron Sagers for the Talking Strange podcast, as he’s promoting Season 3 of his show The Unbelievable With Dan Aykroyd. Naturally, the chance to talk to Dan Aykroyd always includes a chance to ask about Ghostbusters. When inquired about the future of the series, the SNL alum teased that we’ll see more of the ghost-hunting team in the near future:
“Well, yeah, we sure could use pink slime at any time. We’ll see what we do as far as the next Ghostbusters feature, and there will be one. It’s just what avenue we’re going to take. I think that, given creative people in the world we’re living in today, how can you not factor in some of what we’re looking at in terms of the human species’ execrable behavior?
“That may be looked at. Maybe it manifests itself in some kind of an evil formation. Not sure, you know, Jason (Reitman) is working with the creative crew there at Ghost Corps out there in Los Angeles. And I’ll be very interested to see what emerges.”
The Ghostbusters franchise has had its ups and downs. After the 1984 original hit, and the arguably underrated 1989 sequel, the ghostbusting team took a long break, at least in the land of feature films. In 2016, the attempt to reboot with a new gender-swapped squad proved divisive, with a toxic reaction overshadowing the film itself.
2021 saw a return to the original franchise timeline with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a nostalgic sequel that brought back the majority of the cast, while introducing other characters to definitely carry on the saga. In 2024’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the classic team returned again to give some help to the new characters, but the results were widely seen as underwhelming. If the franchise continues, it’ll have to find a way to further the story without relying heavily on nostalgia.
Is the Future of ‘Ghostbusters’ Animated?
When addressing the future of the Ghostbusters series, Aykroyd revealed that there’s something else coming aside from a possible sequel — specifically, there’s an animated series in the works. It won’t be the first time fans have seen the ghost hunters in the animated format; many still remember the ’80s TV series The Real Ghostbusters and the spinoff Extreme Ghostbusters. Aykroyd shared some details:
“We are doing a really neat animated Ghostbusters. It’ll be coming out quite soon. The characters and the whole take and the look of Manhattan is really exciting. So, I think maybe there’s an opportunity there for those writers to address some of the issues that we need to heal and move on with our lives.”