Last week, Ghostbusters fans got their first look at Ghostbusters: Night Shift as Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation unveiled the upcoming series during the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Alongside concept art, the presentation confirmed the show’s 1994 setting, introduced its new team of Ghostbusters, and offered the first substantial details on the franchise’s long-awaited animated return.
Now, What’s on Netflix has followed up with an exclusive interview featuring executive producers Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan alongside showrunners Ben Hibon and Elliott Kalan.
While the Annecy presentation introduced the series, the new conversation pulls back the curtain on how Ghostbusters: Night Shift came together, revealing that its origins trace directly back to the development of Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
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According to Reitman, the idea began with a question that emerged while crafting the recent live-action films. While Ghostbusters: Afterlife revealed what became of Egon Spengler following the events of Ghostbusters II, along with why he left New York and his former teammates behind, it also highlighted how much of that nearly three-decade gap in franchise history remains unexplored. Ghostbusters: Night Shift aims to fill in part of that missing chapter, shifting the focus back to New York City and the Firehouse during the 1990s.
“It started with a mystery. When Gil and I sat down for Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, we were propelled by the mystery of who this girl was. Why did she find a Proton Pack in a barn? Who is she? Why is she being set forth on this adventure? Of course, that left a bigger question: what about these decades in between?”
Rather than simply bringing back familiar faces, Reitman explained that those missing years provided the perfect setting to introduce a new generation of Ghostbusters.
With the franchise’s long history in animation already established through The Real Ghostbusters, the team saw an opportunity to explore what became of the Firehouse during the 1990s, who may have discovered it, and who ultimately answered the next call.
Reitman also credited producer Amie Karp with assembling the creative team, bringing together Elliott Kalan’s writing and Ben Hibon’s visual direction to define the show’s identity from the ground up.
While Ghostbusters: Night Shift embraces the franchise’s animated roots, Hibon stressed that it isn’t trying to recreate The Real Ghostbusters. Instead, the goal is to tell a story set in the 1990s while remaining visually and tonally connected to the live-action films.
That approach also influenced the decision to use CG animation, allowing the team to employ cinematic lighting, camera movement, and horror-inspired visuals that wouldn’t have been possible if they had attempted to emulate an ’80s Saturday-morning cartoon.
“The show is set in the ’90s, but it’s made now,” Hibon explained. “We’re telling a story of that time, and we’re not trying to emulate it. We love The Real Ghostbusters, and it has its place, but we’re canon to the movies, and we exist in that same texture and tangible, grounded reality where the rules and the logic are the same.”
Gil Kenan echoed that philosophy, revealing that from the earliest conversations, the filmmakers wanted Ghostbusters: Night Shift to push beyond expectations of what an animated Ghostbusters series could be. Rather than softening the franchise for animation, the creative team wanted to lean further into horror while preserving the humor and world-building that have always defined Ghostbusters.
According to Kenan, Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation immediately bought into that vision, encouraging the team to push both the scares and comedy as far as possible rather than asking them to pull anything back: “We had an instinct from the beginning that we wanted this series to push the concept of what a Ghostbusters animated series could be. We knew from our earliest conversations that this thing should be properly frightening. We wanted to bring the ghosts back to Ghostbusters.”
FIRST LOOK stunning images and details from highly anticipated Ghostbusters: Nightshift series
Perhaps the interview’s most interesting discussion centered on balancing horror and comedy, something Reitman believes has been at the heart of Ghostbusters since 1984. He noted that audiences originally expected a broad comedy starring Saturday Night Live comedians but instead found themselves watching a supernatural adventure that could be genuinely frightening, particularly for younger viewers. That’s the same balance the creative team is striving for with Ghostbusters: Night Shift, with Reitman even praising Kalan’s scripts for capturing the voice established by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.
“When you read it, it feels like it was written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis; it’s just brilliantly funny and has that Lovecraftian weirdness that defines the original,” Reitman said.
Kalan agreed, arguing that the comedy only works when the world itself feels dangerous. “So a ghost in a silly world is not particularly scary, and it’s not particularly funny, either,” he explained. “But the scarier we make the world, the funnier it is. The farther we push the scares, the farther we can push the comedy, too.”
But how scary is too scary for an animated Ghostbusters series? According to Kalan, that wasn’t a question the creative team spent much time asking. Instead of designing Ghostbusters: Night Shift around a specific age group, the focus was on staying true to the franchise itself, with Kalan believing that if they “do right by Ghostbusters,” audiences of all ages will follow.
He also pointed to the thrill many fans experienced watching movies they were technically too young to see, hoping the series can become a similar gateway into horror for a new generation.
“So much of our thinking was not, ‘Is this all right for this age group?’ but, ‘How do we do right by Ghostbusters?’” Kalan explained. “If we can do that, we will reach the same very broad, universal audience that Ghostbusters has always attracted and spoken to, and which made us love it in the first place.”
Hibon echoed those sentiments, explaining that animation gives the team greater creative freedom to depict horror, dread, and supernatural imagery in highly stylized ways, reinforcing that Ghostbusters: Night Shift isn’t aiming to be a traditional Saturday-morning cartoon but rather a cinematic Ghostbusters story that just happens to be animated.
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Source: Ghostbusters News
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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