Dec 24, 2024

Chris Pearn to Direct Animated “Ghostbusters” Feature Film for Sony and Netflix

Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix are in early development of an animated Ghostbusters feature in addition to the Ghostbusters animated series that Sony has already produced for Netflix.

Kris Pearn (“Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2,” “The Willoughbys”) will direct. Sony's Ghost Corps division, which oversees the franchise, will also be involved in the production.

Plot details are still unknown, but Deadline, which first broke the news, stated that “sources close to the film's development see it as something that could do for the IP what the animated Spider-Verse films did for Spider-Man.”

Sony has been trying to launch an animated Ghostbusters feature for several years, with a 2022 feature being developed by “Hotel Transylvania: Transformania” director Jennifer Kluska and Titmouse founder Chris Prinoski. It has been revealed. The screenwriter for that earlier project was Brenda Hugh (“Elemental,” “How I Met Your Mother”).

The supernatural comedy franchise grew out of the 1984 feature film Ghostbusters, written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Lymis and directed by Ivan Reitman. The film famously drew inspiration from ghost hunting comedies such as Bob Hope, Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, The Bowery Boys, and the 1937 Disney short “Lonesome Ghosts.” Three sequels have since been released in theaters, including this year's Ghostbusters: also two animated series, The Real Ghostbusters (1986) and Extreme Ghostbusters (1997); a female-only theatrical reboot was released in 2016; and a new animated series, The Real Ghostbusters (1985), was released in 2016.