Winter is coming — in the middle of the summer — in teaser to ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ follow-up ‘Frozen Empire’

On Wednesday, Sony Pictures unveiled the teaser to Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the follow-up to the franchise-resurrecting 2021 film Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Carrie Coon, Logan Kim and Celeste O’Connor are back, along with stars from the original Ghostbusters films: franchise co-creator Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson.

The teaser, opening to Bananarama‘s “Cruel Summer,” shows New York City in the middle of a heat wave. As the residents try to beat the heat, a mysterious winter storm blows onto the beach, daggers of ice stab through the ground, and terrified people are frozen in their tracks.

The ice crawls through the streets and up the facade of an iconic former fire house in Lower Manhattan.

So, who ya gonna call?

“For the first time in New York history, people froze to death in the middle of July,” says series newcomer Patton Oswalt in voiceover.

“So what is it?” Grace’s Phoebe Spengler asks Aykroyd’s Dr. Ray Stanz. “The Death Chill,” he replies. “The power to kill by fear itself. Your veins turn into rivers of ice. Your bones crack. And the last thing you see is your own tear ducts freezing up.”

Rudd’s Gary Grooberson asks nervously, “Like literally being scared to death?”

Oswalt’s character giggles, “That’s SO cool!”

The teaser also shows the reveal of the big bad, a menacing specter with frozen blue eyes. The proton pack-strapped gang is watching, perched on a rooftop, and Rudd guffaws as if to copy Oswalt’s character’s sentiment.

The spring release, which also stars Kumail Nanjiani, was co-written and directed by Afterlife veteran Gil Kenan, and co-produced and co-written by that hit reboot’s director Jason Reitman, the son of the late Ghostbusters producer Ivan Reitman.

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