The “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” trailer spends more time setting up its plot than it does hyping up the return of its legacy characters, and it’s not hard to see why. The evil force that’s released in the film, which is referred to by Dan Aykroyd’s Ray as “The Death Chill,” has the power to not only turn New York City into a dangerously cold landscape in the middle of July but can also use its victims’ fear of it against them. So far, very little has been revealed about the entity responsible for the Death Chill, but that hasn’t stopped fans from coming up with their own theories about the main villain of “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.”
As a result of the ongoing focus on the film’s icy threat in its marketing materials, it’s unclear how present Ray, Peter, and Ernie will be throughout “Frozen Empire.” The sequel’s first trailer does tease a potential team-up between Ray, Phoebe, and Podcast, but it offers little information about the size of the original Ghostbusters’ roles in the film. All three characters, notably, show up during the third-act climax of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” to help Phoebe and the rest of the film’s characters vanquish their supernatural villains. That movie also takes some time to catch further up with Peter and Ernie, revealing new details about the directions their lives took after 1989’s “Ghostbusters II.”
It remains to be seen whether or not “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” will focus even more on its legacy characters than its predecessor. Odds are, fans won’t know either way until the film hits theaters on March 29, 2024. Viewers don’t, however, have to wonder any longer about the reasons why Ray, Peter, and Ernie have returned for the new “Ghostbusters” sequel.
