The Sewer Dragon is a very large serpentine ghost based in Hell's Kitchen, New York.
History[]
Before Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire[]
The Sewer Dragon manifested in Hell's Kitchen at some point. The ghost was seen at least 16 times by eyewitnesses, including sightings at a utilities wastewater plant, treatment plant, sewerage authority, and municipal wastewater facilities in New Jersey, County Water and North Wastewater in Upper Manhattan, thrice in north Brooklyn, at Brooklyn Wastewater, and in south Brooklyn's Canarsie Park, Shirley Chisholm State Park, and Howard Beach. A disturbance caused by the ghost at Brooklyn Wastewater left many homes and vehicles covered in sewage. Department of Water officials described seeing a 20-foot long dragon-like creature in the Manhattan sewer system.[Note 1]
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire[]
In the summer of 2024, there was a call about a ghost in the SoHo neighborhood. The Ghostbusters drove past the Cole Haan on Fifth Avenue and observed a manhole being launched in the air and landing in the street. Sewer workers saw it fly past an open manhole. Another manhole landed on and pierced a car's hood near a tattoo shop. It emerged, weaved through traffic, and flew head-on towards Ecto-1. It flew past the driver's side of Ecto-1, rubbing against the body. Two cars crashed at an intersection. Gary Grooberson pulled a U-turn in front of the Five Points Academy and chased after the Sewer Dragon. Phoebe Spengler believed they were going to lose it and activated the gunner chair despite Callie Spengler telling her not to. She declared she had a ghost to bust and snagged the Dragon's tail. It continued flying and the Proton Stream sliced the advertisement top of a taxi cab and hit the sides of several buildings. The Dragon turned left onto E 18th Street just before a Banana Republic. Trevor Spengler deployed the Remote Trap Vehicle but the Dragon flew out of range. Callie Spengler flew the Drone Trap after it. The Dragon doubled back around a building and tried to eat the drone but Callie flew it higher. The Dragon followed and was trapped near City Hall Park. Later that day, Gary and Callie struggled to pull down the handle together and finish depositing Sewer Dragon into the Containment Unit but succeeded eventually.
Four days later, Sewer Dragon was one of the ghosts released from the Containment Unit during Garraka's siege on the Firehouse. Sewer Dragon chased Slimer out of the Firehouse and into the city. The Ghostbusters took off after them in Ecto-1 heading towards the N. Moore Street and Hudson Street intersection.
Description[]
The Sewer Dragon is size of a city bus. It is a shimmering blue ghost with a long tail and wispy blue tendrils floating in its wake.
Behind The Scenes[]
On January 16, 2024, an article about the Empire March 2024 issue was posted. The flying serpent entity's name was revealed to be Sewer Dragon.[1]
Trivia[]
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Trivia[]
- During early development of the movie, Hasbro's John Warden an idea of pitching a sewer monster concept inspired by an eel goby to Gil Kenan. Aaron Gray did the sketch.[2]
- According to Gil Kenan, Sewer Dragon was inspired by the alligator in the sewers urban legend.[3]
- Sewer Dragon originally had a more advanced design with a lot of refraction through the surfaces but it wasn't working. They took inspiration from Subway Ghost from the first movie to achieve a similar optical composited sensibility.[4]
- Sewer Dragon was originally designed by DNEG but the task ultimately fell to Sony Pictures Imageworks.[5]
- The Sewer Dragon knocking manhole covers into the air was inspired by manhole cover explosions that plagued New York in the early 2020s.[6]
- One the maps in Peter Venkman's office in the Firehouse charts appearances of Sewer Dragon throughout New York.
Appearances[]
Primary Canon Appearances[]
Notes[]
- ↑ The various sightings of Sewer Dragon are marked on a map in Peter Venkman's office in the Firehouse. The map is presented in behind-the-scenes footage recorded by Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Art Director Luke Whitelock here and here. There are at least two articles also pinned near the map that read "Paranormal Disturbance at Wastewater Facility in Brooklyn Leaves Cars and Homes Damaged by Sewage" and "20-Foot Dragon-Like Creature Spotted in New York Sewer System..." Screengrabs of the map and article can be seen in the Behind The Scenes section of the article's gallery
References[]
- ↑ Empire Online "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Is Inspired By The Real Ghostbusters With Its ‘Wild, Original, And Weird-As-F–– Villains’ – Exclusive" 1/16/2024
- ↑ Aaron Gray instagram 4/14/2025 Line reads: "Early in the development of Frozen Empire @wardenfive had the cool idea of pitching @gilkenan a sewer monster inspired by an Eel Goby. The initial sketch is too janky to show so I redid it in blender haha. That initial pitch was the extent of my involvement, so it was cool to see where they took it in the film. It looked awesome!"
- ↑ Gil Kenan (2024). Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire- Commentary (2024) (Blu-ray ts. 06:01-06:50). Sony Pictures. Gil Kenan says: "And, uh, the Hell's Kitchen Sewer Dragon was inspired by one of the oldest myths in, uh-- Or urban legends. A story that's been around in New York since the early 20th century of the sewer gators or alligators. Basically, there was this urban legend that stores in New York in the early 20th century were selling alligators on the cheap. You know, a nickel an alligator for this little thing swimming around in a bag, and kids brought 'em home. Then, as they started to grow larger than whatever aquarium they had, they would flush them down the toilet. The urban legend was that these alligators continued to grow and haunt the city from beneath the streets in the vast sewer system of New York."
- ↑ beforesandafters "Making slimer, a sewer dragon and those Mini-Pifts for 'Frozen Empire'" 9:13-10:54 4/29/2024 Jason Greenblum says: "That one was--we started out, again, with something that looked very different than the artwork that we had, had a very advanced look than the original film. And we started going in there in stills. In development we pushed the look to look like the artwork which had lot of complexity to it. A lot of refraction through the surface, you get a scattering through the bone structure so you get a nearer plane. Skeletal structure would be sharper and further through the surfaces to get more of an abstraction. A scattering effect. And ultimately, it wasn't working the shot. We were going through versions with Gil and Geoff. And we were scratching our heads 'Why isn't this working?' and we looked back at the '84 movie and there was the ghost that came out of sewer--I'm not remembering the name of that particular character--there's a ghost that comes out of the sewer that's kinda--I'm sorry not out of the sewer, out of the subway, and we're like that's our inspiration. In comp, we started playing with the layers and trying to get that f--again it's that optical compositing look and he had done this whole thing with the dragon, a vapor that trails off of him with a lot of complexity and in the end, we ended up mixing a lot of that back and just wanted to capture that feeling of the '84 movie that optical composited feel."
- ↑ beforesandafters "Here’s how practical Slimer puppetry was mixed with CG for ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’" 4/29/2024 Line reads: "The sewer dragon was a CG creature. It was originally designed by DNEG, and then ultimately crafted for the film by Imageworks."
- ↑ Gil Kenan (2024). Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire- Commentary (2024) (Blu-ray ts. 07:08-07:19). Sony Pictures. Gil Kenan says: "The other thing that inspired this-- this sequence was, a few years ago in New York there was a spate of sewer cover explosions."
Gallery[]
Primary Canon Images[]
Behind the Scenes Images[]
