Jason Reitman's Ghostbusters : Afterlife follow-up will take the franchise back to Manhattan

It came. It saw. It kicked (the box office's) ass. Despite its mixed critical reception, Sony sees a long afterlife for Jason Reitman's Ghostbusters reboot.

Reitman, the son of original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, said at last year's New York Comic Con that he hoped the 2021 film would "set the table" for additional sequels. This week, as part of a "Ghostbusters Day" event marking the anniversary of the 1984 film's June 8 release, the director revealed that the franchise's next installment is in development.

"We're writing another movie," Reitman said alongside screenwriter Gil Kenan. "Tonight, we're going to share the code name for the next chapter in the Spengler family story."

While the original two Ghostbusters films featured a team of four characters — Bill Murray's Peter Venkman, Dan Aykroyd's Ray Stantz, Ernie Hudson's Winston Zeddemore, and Harold Ramis' Egon Spengler — Afterlife focused specifically on Spengler's descendants, who rediscovered his technology and legacy years after his death. His daughter Callie (Carrie Coon) and grandchildren Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) look set to bust a whole new generation of ghosts.

A post-credits scene showed Winston returning the vintage Ecto-1 to the team's original home, a renovated firehouse in Manhattan. According to Reitman, that's where the new movie will pick up, far from the Oklahoma ranches of Afterlife.

"The last time we saw Ecto-1, it was driving back into Manhattan: the home of Ghostbusters. That's where our story begins. The codename is Firehouse," Reitman and Kenan announced. Afterlife, you might recall, went by the codename "Rust City" during filming.

That's not all, either. The Ghostbusters team also announced a new comic series from publisher Dark Horse, a new animated film from directors Jennifer Kluska (Hotel Transylvania: Transformania) and Chris Prynoski (Metalocalypse), and a new animated series on Netflix. That's one heck of a P.K.E. surge for the franchise.

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