Netflix has set a 2027 debut for its untitled “Ghostbusters” animated series and confirmed that original co-creator Dan Aykroyd is joining the project as an executive producer. The streamer revealed the news Wednesday as part of its Annecy International Animation Film Festival lineup, with a world-exclusive preview of the show set for June 24 at the Théâtre Bonlieu in Annecy, France.
Deadline first reported Aykroyd’s involvement, which Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation confirmed in official press materials. The series is being produced in partnership with Sony Pictures Animation and Ghost Corps, the Sony-based label co-founded by Aykroyd that oversees the franchise. Animation duties are being handled by Flying Bark Productions, the Sydney-based studio behind “Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Stranger Things: Tales from ’85.”
Aykroyd, who co-wrote the 1984 original with the late Harold Ramis and played Ray Stantz across the live-action films, joins an EP roster that includes Jason Reitman, Gil Kenan, Amie Karp, and showrunners Ben Hibon and Elliott Kalan. Reitman directed 2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” and Kenan directed 2024’s “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” with the two co-writing both features.
Hibon, whose credits include “Star Trek: Prodigy” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” is sharing showrunner duties with Kalan, the former head writer of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Plot specifics remain under wraps. Netflix has described the project only as a high-end animated series “based on the beloved Ghostbusters IP,” though prior teases from the producers have indicated a fresh story aimed at all ages.
The 3D animated series has been in development since it was first announced on Ghostbusters Day in June 2022. At a private Annecy presentation last year, Netflix’s Dominique Bazay described it as “Ghostbusters as you’ve never seen it.” A pre-recorded message from Hibon, played at Annecy in June 2025, laid out a tactile, highly stylized visual approach.
“The goal is never photorealism,” Hibon said in the message. “The way we approach light, the volume of light and the softness and the coloration and the temperature of light is really what brings very highly stylized characters or simplified environments or basically textures into a realm that feels very tactile and tangible.”
Aykroyd had teased the project in interviews ahead of Netflix’s official confirmation. “We are doing a really neat animated Ghostbusters. It’ll be coming out quite soon. The characters and the whole take and the look of Manhattan is really exciting,” Aykroyd said. He added that the writers had “an opportunity there for those writers to address some of the issues that we need to heal and move on with our lives.”
A separate animated “Ghostbusters” feature is also in development at Sony, with Kris Pearn (“The Willoughbys”) set to direct from a script by Sam Jarvis. The animated series will be the franchise’s first ongoing TV property since Sony’s “Extreme Ghostbusters” wrapped its single-season run in 1997. ABC’s “The Real Ghostbusters,” which ran from 1986 to 1991, remains the most-watched television entry in the franchise.
Reitman, Kenan, Hibon, and Kalan are all expected on stage at the Théâtre Bonlieu on June 24 for the world-exclusive preview, which Netflix has billed as “Next on Netflix Animation: from Ghostbusters to Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn.” A title and premiere date for the series have not been announced.
