Gil Kenan thought Afterlife would have been the sequel to bring back Louis Tully.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire brought back a number of beloved figures from the history of the franchise, though one figure from the first two films who didn’t make their return is Rick Moranis as Louis Tully. Director of this latest sequel Gil Kenan noted that, while he’s a big fan of Moranis, there was less of a thematic reason to attempt to include Louis as compared to 2021’s Afterlife, while also noting that he wished he could have brought back Sigourney Weaver as Dana Barrett. With Frozen Empire out now in theaters, it could earn enough excitement from audiences to warrant a sequel, which would potentially allow Louis or Dana to appear in that sequel.
When asked by The Hollywood Reporter about attempts to bring back Moranis, Kenan confessed, “That would be a [co-writer and Afterlife director] Jason Reitman question. That was more of an Afterlife story. We never wrote a role for Louis Tully in Frozen Empire. We’ve got enough characters in this story. I love Tully by the way. I’m a huge Rick Moranis fan. Louis Tully was an indelible element of Ghostbusters. Dana Barrett is also one of my favorite characters in these films, but there was no story for Dana Barrett in Frozen Empire. But if we’re lucky enough to make more of these films, I would love for Dana to have more to do in these stories.”
In the first movie, Louis lived down the hall from Dana, which is why he inadvertently got looped into the supernatural schemes of Gozer, while Ghostbusters II saw him lending legal support to the heroes, with the film’s finale seeing him help out the team with some ghost-busting equipment.
Original stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts all appear in Frozen Empire, as do the core cast members who were introduced in Afterlife. Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt have also entered the fray, and while Sigourney Weaver had cameos in both Afterlife and 2016’s Ghostbusters, she doesn’t appear in Frozen Empire.
In Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the Spengler family returns to where it all started – the iconic New York City firehouse – to team up with the original Ghostbusters, who’ve developed a top-secret research lab to take busting ghosts to the next level. But when the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second Ice Age.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is in theaters now.
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