New Ghostbusters movie debuts with the franchise's lowest Rotten Tomatoes score yet - but fans are staying hopeful

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has debuted with the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in franchise history – but that's not stopping fans (including myself) from keeping the faith.

The fifth film in the Ghostbusters franchise, directed by Gil Kenan, sits at a Rotten Tomatoes critic score of only 47%. Per the official synopsis, the movie sees the Spengler family leave Summerville, Oklahoma and take up residence at the iconic New York City firehouse in order to help the original Ghostbusters, who've developed a top-secret research lab to take busting ghosts to the next level. All is well until an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force – and threatens to throw the world into a second Ice Age.

Some of the RT reviews call the sequel "cluttered" and "confused by its own lore," with others calling the villain "underwhelming." Despite the low critic score, franchise fans are refusing to be dissuaded.

"We only listen to the audience score," wrote one fan.

"I’m still gonna watch it… critics don’t matter," another wrote.

"Audience score will be above 80%. What the critics are saying is ridiculous," someone tweeted.

"So just like Afterlife the critics don't like it but the actual fans will. Got it," the Michigan Ghostbusters (which does various events around the state not only in costume but in a replica of the iconic Ghostbusters car) account wrote.

Another fan pointed out that the score critic score isn't too far behind Ghostbusters 2, which has a critic score of 55%.

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ based in New York City. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.