Ghostbusters: Night Shift — Netflix Animated Series Promises Canon-Compliant Chaos with Dan Aykroyd and Jason Reitman on Board

Who You Gonna Call? Netflix, Apparently

The Ghostbusters franchise is jumping back into animation — and this time, it's coming straight to your Netflix queue. Titled Ghostbusters: Night Shift, the upcoming animated series promises to be fully canon-compliant, blending the humor and horror that made the original films iconic. The show was unveiled to an enthusiastic crowd at the Annecy Animation Festival, and the creative team behind it has been talking nonstop about how they intend to honor the legacy while pushing the franchise into bold new territory.

Premiering on Netflix sometime in 2027, Ghostbusters: Night Shift is set in New York City in 1994 — five years after the Ghostbusters famously took the Statue of Liberty for a joyride. With a fresh wave of supernatural chaos hitting the Big Apple, a new team of paranormal investigators must suit up. The series is produced by Sony Pictures Animation in collaboration with Netflix, with Dan Aykroyd serving as executive producer and Jason Reitman heavily involved in shaping the show's creative direction.

Canon First, Chaos Second

Co-showrunner Elliott Kalan, who admitted Ghostbusters runs through his “internal DNA,” made it his mission to ensure the series stays faithful to the franchise’s established mythology. “The Ghostbusters movies are miracles,” Kalan said. “They have a very specific tone, and they care about the characters, who are so charismatic to be around. We wanted to try to capture that tone in all aspects.”

EP Amie Karp revealed that the team approached Netflix and Sony with one critical question: “Can we make an animated series that is in canon?” The answer was a resounding yes — and the studios even encouraged the team to push boundaries. “Go weirder, go weirder,” Kalan recalled being told during production. Jason Reitman jokingly added, “Remember the amount of drugs the originators were on when they created this.”

The goal, according to Kalan, is to make the show feel seamless with the live-action films. “We want our characters to feel like they could walk off the television, onto a movie screen, and interact with the pre-existing characters if they wanted to.”

Bringing Horror Back to Animation

One of the most exciting aspects of Ghostbusters: Night Shift is its emphasis on horror — a genre that executive producer Gil Kenan believes is “under utilized” in animation. “Animation is a perfect medium for horror,” Kenan said. “You control every pixel on screen. That’s ultimate horror. In the hands of these artists, there was an opportunity to capture that pure spark of horror that we haven’t gotten in animation in a while.”

Jason Reitman echoed the sentiment, emphasizing that the show must deliver on both comedy and scares. “We said that if Ghostbusters is going to step back into animation, it had to be as funny as anything you’ve ever seen in Ghostbusters, and as scary as anything you’ve ever seen in Ghostbusters.”

Having Dan Aykroyd’s buy-in was described as a “dream” by Kalan, who called it “hugely powerful” for the adaptation. Kalan was left speechless when Reitman told him he is “one of the only people I’ve ever met who can write like Dan Aykroyd.”

What This Means for the Franchise

Ghostbusters: Night Shift marks a major return to the animated format for the franchise, which previously spawned beloved series like The Real Ghostbusters (1986–1991) and Extreme Ghostbusters (1997). For millennials who grew up watching those shows after school, this announcement hits a sweet spot of nostalgia mixed with fresh, modern storytelling.

The series comes from the creative minds behind Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), ensuring consistency with the recent live-action entries. With Sony Pictures Animation’s track record and Netflix’s global reach, Night Shift could easily become one of the most talked-about animated series of 2027.

No exact release date has been announced yet, but expect more details — and likely a first trailer — to drop later this year. One thing’s for sure: the ghosts of New York better watch out. The new crew is coming.