Why Bill Murray & The Original Ghostbusters Cast Are REALLY Back In Frozen Empire

The "Ghostbusters" franchise is heading back to New York City. Indeed, following its brief detour to Oklahoma for 2021's "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," the series is set to return to not only its original city but also the iconic firehouse where its eponymous team set up their base of operations back in the 1980s. All of this and more was revealed recently in the first trailer for "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire," which is slated to hit theaters next March. The film will bring back most of the characters from its 2021 predecessor, including Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), Lucky Domingo (Celeste O'Connor), Podcast (Logan Kim), and Callie (Carrie Coon), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), and Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace).

They're not the only familiar characters who are expected to appear in the forthcoming "Ghostbusters" sequel. On the contrary, the "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" trailer features cameos from several of the franchise's original heroes — namely, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond "Ray" Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson). Thanks to the film's official plot synopsis, fans also know why the remaining members of the original Ghostbusters will return in "Frozen Empire."

According to Sony Pictures, the movie will follow the Spengler family as they journey to New York City to "team up with the original Ghostbusters" and use the mysterious new research lab they've designed to help them capture and analyze their ghostly targets. However, when the team discovers an ancient artifact, they accidentally unleash an evil force that has the power to send the world into a second Ice Age. If they want to have any chance of stopping it, both the new and legacy members of the Ghostbusters will need to join forces.

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.