The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub interviews
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
director, Gil Kenan.
Director Gil Kenan discusses pitching the story to Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, using practical effects on set, getting Bill Murray to return, and the origins of Garraka.
Kenan also shares an update on Jason Reitman’s upcoming project,
SNL 1975.

In 2021, creative partners Gil Kenan (Monster House) and Jason Reitman (Juno) unleashed their reboot, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, honoring the 1980s franchise that forever changed the pop culture zeitgeist. Having served as co-writer on the previous film, Kenan now presents the sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as director, alongside co-writer Reitman, to continue the story the duo cooked up with the blessing of the OG director, Ivan Reitman.

In Frozen Empire, the ensemble cast that makes up the Spengler family — Carrie Coon (The Gilded Age), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), and Mckenna Grace (The Handmaid’s Tale) — and Gary Grooberson, played by Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), take up shop in the Manhattan firehouse. The movie introduces an all-new icy antagonist whose powers threaten the fate of the world, which brings legacy characters back into the fold. Ghostbusters’ Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Dan Aykroyd are joined by franchise newcomers Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals), Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille), Celeste O’Connor (Madame Web), and Emily Alyn Lind (Doctor Sleep).

In this interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Kenan shares what it was like to pitch Afterlife and Frozen Empire to Ivan Reitman and discusses how much of the storyline and characters they knew about long before production began. The director talks about the origins of Garraka, finding the fine line of thrills and scares, the magic of practical effects on a set, and deleted scenes. For an update on Reitman’s SNL 1975 and tons more, check out the video above or the transcript below.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire When the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second ice age.Release Date March 22, 2024 Director Gil Kenan Runtime 125 Minutes Writers Gil Kenan , Jason Reitman , Ivan Reitman , Dan Aykroyd , Harold Ramis

‘Frozen Empire’ Was Mapped Out Before ‘Afterlife’ Released

COLLIDER: Jumping backwards, Ghostbusters: Afterlife comes out — how soon after the movie opened did Sony call you and Jason and say, “Hey, how do you feel about making another one?”

GIL KENAN: I think it was actually before Afterlife came out that that conversation started. There was a sort of delay in the release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife because of the pandemic, and so that created an opportunity that Columbia jumped on for us to start crafting that next story. Jason and I already had a lot of that mapped out because we planted the seeds of the return to Manhattan, the continuing of this family legacy rooted on the Spengler’s. That was already in motion when Afterlife was out. We pitched something very close to the film that is going to be out in theaters next week to Ivan [Reitman] a few weeks before Afterlife opened.

I was actually going to ask you about that. I did read that you got to pitch Ivan before he passed. Did he give any notes or feedback that made you guys say, “Oh, maybe we should also do that?”

KENAN: It was validation. It was such a warm and loving storytelling session. We sat in his garden, and Jason and I walked him through a full pitch. It was a completely dynamic three-act pitch. He was so happy to hear about the confident return to New York City, happy to hear about the interplay of the legacy, OG Ghostbusters with our new Spengler family characters, and the conclusion of our new characters in this story. We already knew we were writing for Kumail Nanjiani with this character, Nadeem, and that arc was already pretty well-fleshed out in that pitch. I just remember it being an incredibly warm and validating experience.

How did you guys decide on the antagonist of the film? Was it ever going to be somebody else?

KENAN: No. I think that the character of Garraka was a character that was rooted out of [how] we knew we were expanding the mythology beyond the Gozerian, beyond the Sumerian, right? So, it meant that we had the opportunity to draw on some other traditions of ghosts and ghost-busting, and that opened up an entire avenue of research for us. We were writing a lot in London where I live now, and so that meant that we were able to take walks into the British Museum, into the Halls of Antiquity, and get organic inspiration from artifacts. We knew that ancient artifacts were going to play a role in this story from very early on, that the ability of spirits to inhabit objects was going to be a central thread running like a ribbon through this story.

Image via Sony

Garraka came out of a desire to create an entirely new and nightmarish presence in this story. I drew an inspiration in writing this character from the characters that moved me as a young film lover, like some of the creatures in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, where there was a sort of visceral, tactile sense to the characters on screen, something that felt both alive and storybook at the same time. Those were always the experiences that moved me and terrified me as a young film lover, and so that was a kind of core inspiration for Garraka.

Bill Murray Was “Down to Play” for ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’
“They love these stories so much.”
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

Bill Murray is in this film. The thing about Bill is he’s a loose cannon. You really don’t know what’s gonna happen. So when you were talking with him about being in the movie, was he like, “I’ll do a big role?” Was he like, “I’ll work four days?” How was that figured out?

KENAN: Well, you know very well that Bill and I have a history [laughs] because we made a movie together in 2007, a movie that almost cost you your life. That was the Hall H experience and we won’t go into too much. But it opened the door for Bill and I to have a relationship that has remained dynamic over the years. We’ve stayed friends, we’ve kept in touch. When I reached out to him to say that we were creating a story for Peter Venkman in this film he was really enthusiastic. What I’ve learned coming into this from the outside, as a fan stepping into the ring of Ghostbusters, is that, actually, these legendary actors who one can approach with reverence because they’ve changed the course of our filmmaking lives, they love their characters. They love these stories so much. It really is, for them, an absolute gesture of affection every time they put on the flight suit. Even though they grumble about putting on those proton packs, they really love doing it because it’s central to their identity as stars and as characters that have relationships with audiences around the world. So, if we do right by them in the writing, if I do right by them in the staging of the scene, I found that time after time they were game and giving, and down to play. And Bill was a joy to work with on this film. I’m really proud that Peter Venkman really shows up in this film. I feel like Bill came ready to do his thing.

Related Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson Suit Up in New ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ Image The film freezes over theaters this March.

You know I love talking about editing, so who did you show early cuts to for honest feedback, and what notes did you get from showing it to friends and family, or whoever, that impacted the finished film?

KENAN: Well, one of the things that was a reality of making this film is, actually, the post period was incredibly tight because I started filming this movie two days before it’ll release in theaters around the world. So, March 20, 2023 was the first day of principal photography on this movie, which means in shooting all of it and doing post, it all happened within an incredibly protracted period of time. So, that meant that there wasn’t the normal expanse of time to tinker and tool. I showed it to some core collaborators, and that included our family of Ghost Corps, a lot of which are really determined, dyed-in-the-wool Ghostbusters fans, who will not mince words when something is or isn’t working, and ran the film for general preview audiences of different age brackets.

I started out with Monster House pushing the line of what constitutes a family-safe thrill ride for an audience. I really love that experience of being able to create something that’s fully visceral as an experience for a young film audience, to feel like you’re gonna be safe, but you’re gonna be you’re gonna be taken right up to the edge. And so, for me, that is both drawing on my own instincts as what worked on me when I was a kid watching movies and also screening the movie for young audiences and just getting a sense of the energy in the room. Where is it too scary? Where is the line and how close to it can I get?

Fans Will Get to Watch ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ Deleted Scenes

Did you end up with a lot of deleted scenes?

KENAN: There’s only a couple of deleted scenes. Unfortunately, they’re great scenes, so it’s really hard to do, but they were really necessary to cut for shape and flow. They were fantastic scenes that came sort of too late in the film, when you really wanted to watch the preparations for the final siege on the firehouse come together. I’m definitely including them in whatever extra material’s out later on because I’m proud of the scenes. I’m proud of the performances in them, I’m proud of the directing in them, and I want audiences who are looking for an expanded experience with this film to be able to have those scenes, to be able to assess how they would have fit into the whole. But there’s not too many of them, and when you watch them you realize that the film is better for them having stood to the side for the greater good.

So no extended cut? These are just deleted scenes?

KENAN: No, I’m not really an extended cut kind of guy. I believe that the film that comes out for audiences is forged by fire, that the process of finishing the film is what makes the product.

Practical Effects Brought ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ to Life
Image via Sony

One of the things about the film is you do a lot of practical stuff. What are some of the practical things in the movie that you’re proud of?

KENAN: Well, I’m so proud of Slimer. Slimer is a mixture of puppet performance and digital puppet performance. The real puppet performance, specifically one of his last and most iconic moments on screen, which I don’t want to spoil but audiences will know it, — he’s putting something big into his mouth — that moment was such an absolute thrill to direct. I was there hurling the objects into this poor puppet’s mouth. It takes three puppeteers to bring Slimer to life, and it was done in the exact same way that Boss Films did it in 1984. Arjen Tuiten was our creature designer. He used the exact same molds and the same formulation for foam material for the puppet, and in fact used some of the scraps of the original foam from the 1984 puppet in this stew that created our material for this. So, that I’m really proud of.

Image via Sony

We had an extraordinary special effects team. Every single thing that I threw at them, they were able to build. One of the things that was like an absolute unbelievable thrill to sketch out and then watch be executed was the frozen adventurers and their collapse. Each of those is 100% in-camera effect. There is no digital work in those collapses. I cast the actors; Ruth Myers, one of our two costume designers, created their looks; hair and makeup did their thing. We had full body molds and scans made of the performers in costume, and then SFX figured out a way to create a sugar glass molding process for entire human performers, then rig them with cables so that on cue they could shatter. You cannot imagine how high stakes each of those moments of photography was. One of them collapsed prematurely, but the rest of them all went off like clockwork, and it was magic to see it happen on set. This is why we do this stuff.

This Is When ‘SNL 1975’ Takes Place
“It’s a love letter to the changing of culture and of comedy.”
Image via NBC

I’m almost out of time with you, so I do need to touch on SNL 1975, which obviously I’m incredibly excited to see. I know that you and Jason interviewed crew members and the living cast members to make the film. Where did you feel like you could take liberties with the story, and where did you feel like, “We need to be as accurate as we can in telling this?”

KENAN: Oh, there are absolute liberties. I mean, we took themes and events that occurred across several months of the mounting of that show and were able to weave them into the architecture of the events of that first night. It’s a love letter to the changing of culture and of comedy that happened in 8H in 1975. The experience of interviewing those writers and crew members, cast members will go down in my lifetime as one of the high water creative experiences. We would finish each of those interviews and Jason and I would just stare at each other for minutes after it, just processing the stories we just heard, and filled notebooks with them. By the time it came down to writing that thing, we just exploded. We had so many stories, so many moments we were bursting to put on camera. We just couldn’t wait to do it.

Is the movie taking place over like a week or two?

KENAN: No, no, no. It’s in real time. It’s the 90 minutes leading up to. I think Jason’s already said that. I want to be careful not to jump the gun before because I want Jason to be able to properly set this one up when he’s ready to come out and do press, but I’m so excited about it. It’s an absolute love letter. For us, that was comedy school growing up, was SNL. So, yeah, we’re beyond thrilled and honored to be able to tell that story.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is in theaters now.

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