Ghostbusters Day 2025 Recap

This year, forget Ghostbusters Day, everyone. It was Ghostbusters WEEKEND!

Starting with a classic party thrown by the Yes Have Some crew at Rodney’s (named after Rodney Dangerfield), Friday night was the official start of what turned into a full weekend worth of Ghostbusters awesomeness. Yes Have Some had a live studio audience show where they did a Q&A with McKenna Grace and Eric Reich to the lucky few who purchased the VIP tickets (which, in true YHS fashion came with the perks of exclusive merch and a few other bonuses).

At Hook and Ladder No. 8, the party began early in the morning with a crowd gathered in front of the firehouse, bands playing, and Jason Reitman, McKenna Grace, and Carrie Coon arriving in an Ecto-1 to a roaring crowd.

At the event, Jason Reitman unveiled the Ghostbusters Give Back program, an official way for fan groups to be recognized for the charity work they are doing. Teams can sign up at Ghostbusters.com and, based upon their merits, will receive patches for their group to place on their uniforms.

Hasbro unveiled a new full-sized 1984 Proton Pack and and Ecto-Glow Ecto-1 in the Real Ghostbusters style. Presumably to coincide with the Ecto-Glow figures being re-released as exclusives at San Diego Comic-Con 2025. Also announced was a new set of 6-inch action figures of the original 1984 Ghostbusters as seen in their rooftop showdown with Gozer.

Licensing-a-Palooza 2016

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It all started out innocently enough, a quick Tweet from a fan to Paul Feig (in good fun riding on the "Where's Rey?" trend) in which it was asked if all four of the new 'busters would receive the action figure treatment and his response was a first glimpse of the new Mattel action figures. That enough got the buzz machine going all throughout the internet but shortly on that image's heels was a licensing event held in London by Rocket Licensing in which new props and gadgets were displayed, footage was shown, and potential developers were enticed with the possibilities of things to come this July that they might be able to hitch their wagons onto. While many of the new props haven't been clearly defined (pistol guns? is that our first look at the trap?) it certainly can get discussion going. 

Below is a gallery of images (courtesy of Rocket Licensing, Mattel, and Paul Feig's Twitter account) from this week's event. Any thoughts what we might be looking at in all of these? 

Dissecting the New Proton Pack Design

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The hits just keep right on coming... if anyone was worried that the Ghostbusters (2016) props might take a bit of a sleek Jonny Ive Apple modernized look, Paul Feig once again took to Twitter today to reveal the (presumably unlicensed) nuclear accelerators that his characters will be wearing in the film.

Right off the bat, I love that it still looks like something cobbled together on a run to a hardware/tech junkyard in Burbank, CA would have yielded. It's analog with a few very rudimentary digital touches and still maintains some of the structural elements from the original proton pack design like the cyclotron, what looks like an n-filter buried underneath an automobile inspired roll-bar. There's also what appears to be a new carrying handle built into the bottom of the pack, my guess is to assist in pulling it out of a vehicle, or pulling it off a rack. The blue meter at top left has been replaced with a digital dot-matrix read-out which makes sense for more accurate power readings. The only thing that feels a little missing are some red circulating lights around the cyclotron, something to give the main body of the pack some life. But perhaps that's an element still to be seen.

Interesting to note that the nuclear symbol in the top left corner has a small heart on it, it feels like a bit of a WWII bomber touch to this particular pack, wondering if each of the packs will have a customized feel like the Colonial Marines' armor in James Cameron's Aliens? 

The new design element that I'm completely over the moon about is actually the particle thrower itself. It maintains a similar silhouette as its predecessor but feels a little more raw, metallic elements showing and cabling unshielded where some corrugated tubing would usually keep everything tucked in neatly. The end of the wand has almost a flame-thrower feel to it as opposed to the frosted glass in the original pack which makes it feel a little more dangerous and a whole lot more like a weapon. A very interesting stylistic choice.

With the uniforms glimpsed yesterday, and the packs revealed today, I'm wondering if a full costumed shot of the main cast isn't far behind? Stay tuned.