The new trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire dropped on Monday — and with it, the jaws of millions of the franchise's fans.
The trailer opens with a voice-over that heralds the return of an original antagonist, William Atherton's Walter Peck, the representative of the Environmental Protection Agency who tried to shut the 'busters down in the 1984 original.
He's apparently up to his old tricks. With some callback footage of the first film, Peck recaps its climax — which saw him covered in melted marshmallow — by saying, "According to these hacks, they saved the world." He adds that there were "no witnesses."
This time, he's questioning the team's new members: Paul Rudd's Gary Grooberson, as well as Egon Spengler's descendants who are carrying the torch — Egon's daughter Callie, played again by Carrie Coon, and his grandkids Phoebe and Trevor, played respectively by Mckenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard.
The movie centers on a mysterious artifact that Dan Aykroyd's Dr. Ray Stanz explains can unleash an "unimaginable evil" that can "command an army of ghosts" and bring about "a second ice age."
They're going to need help, and so also returning is Ernie Hudson's Winston Zeddemore. It's explained in 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife that he's parleyed some of his fortune to bringing the team back together. Bill Murray's Dr. Peter Venkman is shown packing his proton pack and then marveling at the appearance of another veteran, Annie Potts' Janine Melnitz, "in uniform!"
Also returning is Slimer, the piggish ghost from the first film.
Apart from its stunning visuals, Rudd again steals the show in the trailer, confessing to Callie as she protests, "You know what? Bustin' makes me feel good."
The movie haunts theaters March 22.