Neflix's Ghostbusters: Night Shift connects the '80s films to Afterlife

The Netflix series will explain the lost era of ghostbusting

Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman co-wrote and directed 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife and its 2024 sequel Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which continued the story of the original 1980s films about paranormal investigators. Now they’ll be bridging the decades-long gap in the story with the Netflix animated series Ghostbusters: Night Shift, which is set in 1994 New York.

“We became very curious about the mystery of the 1990s and ghostbusting,” Kenan told Polygon during an interview at Annecy Festival. “We set it up a little bit in Afterlife, when Ray gives a little context about where everyone is and that they've gone their separate ways, but it felt like there was not just a big story to tell, but a lost part of the legend of ghostbusting.”

The show will explain what happened to the original Ghostbusters’ firehouse headquarters while following a new group of unlikely young heroes who become ghostbusters.

“Ghostbusters has always been about punching up,” Kenan says. “It's always been about outsiders who have to be scrappy and find a way in spite of the system to save the city or save the world, and these characters are no exception. They're going to have to be inventive and go up against a system that doesn't quite understand them.”

The characters don’t start with any knowledge of what ghostbusting entails, but have to quickly learn how to deal with supernatural threats. There will be villains of the week, but Night Shift will tell a serialized story linked to the cinematic timeline.

“We want the seasons to feel like real big meaty epic stories, but each episode also is satisfying as an episode,” Kenan said.

Although he’d like to tell more Ghostbusters stories in other eras, Kenan chose 1994 as the best place to develop the story from the films while also covering a major turning point for New York as a city.

“That's the last moment when the old smelly New York becomes the cleaned up, still smells, but it's a richer city New York,” co-showrunner Elliott Kalan says. “We want to be in that New York of punk culture.”

The Ghostbusters logo was redone for Night Shift to represent that punk aesthetic, giving it a do-it-yourself style inspired by photocopied band flyers. Punk rock will also feature heavily in the show’s '90s music soundtrack.

“1994 is an incredibly exciting year for everything in New York,” co-showrunner Ben Hibon says. “It’s music, culture, and so much creativity coming together, and so many smells.”

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Ghostbusters: Night Shift will premiere on Netflix in 2027.