Ghostbusters (1984)

Plot

Three parapsychology researchers who specialize in ghosts, Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), find themselves out of work when Columbia University terminates their grant. Before they are removed from the university, they investigate a haunting at the New York City Public Library, where a ghostly librarian, the Library Ghost, runs them out after they observe some symmetrical book stacking.

With no academic backing, the three start a business called "Ghostbusters," a professional paranormal investigation and elimination service, out of an old firehouse. They get around the city in a converted 1959 Cadillac ambulance dubbed Ecto-1 and hire Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) to run the phones. Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) of 550 Central Park West comes to them after something terrifying happens in her kitchen, centered on the name "Zuul." Venkman uses the visit to get close to Dana.

Their first paying job is a ghost at the Sedgewick Hotel, where the team captures a green, gluttonous spirit (Slimer) after wrecking a ballroom. The bust makes them an overnight success across New York and the nation. As the calls pile up, they bring on a fourth member, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson). Their growing fame also draws Walter Peck (William Atherton) of the Environmental Protection Agency, who tries to inspect the team's storage facility and is refused.

Dana is later attacked in her apartment and possessed by Zuul, the Gatekeeper. Her neighbor Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) is chased by a Terror Dog and possessed by Vinz Clortho, the Keymaster. Both are minions of the god Gozer. Peck obtains a court order to shut down the team's containment grid; the collapse releases hundreds of trapped ghosts across the city, and the team is arrested. From jail, they work out that Dana's building was built as a giant antenna designed to draw in and concentrate spiritual energy. The mayor (David Margulies) releases them over Peck's objections.

Assisted by police and the Army, the Ghostbusters reach the rooftop temple atop 550 Central Park West, too late to stop the possessed Dana and Louis from opening the gate. Gozer (Slavitza Jovan) appears, shrugs off their proton streams, and tells them to choose the form of the destructor. Ray cannot keep his mind blank and thinks of the most innocent thing he can: the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which materializes as a giant and lays waste to the city. Egon proposes crossing the streams, a "total protonic reversal" that should close the gate. The plan works, sealing the portal, destroying Gozer, and returning Dana and Louis to normal.

Origins as "Ghost Smashers"

Aykroyd conceived the project out of his own fascination with the paranormal, originally as a vehicle for himself and his Saturday Night Live friend John Belushi. His early story, titled "Ghost Smashers," was very different from the finished film: a group of Ghostbusters would travel through time, space, and other dimensions to take on huge ghosts.

Aykroyd began writing his first draft in late 1981. Progress was slow because of his other projects. On March 5, 1982, while writing one of Venkman's lines, Aykroyd learned that Belushi had died.¹ He sent a half-finished script to Bill Murray, who responded favorably, then took it to Ivan Reitman.² At that point the script ran only forty or fifty pages, was set in the future across multiple dimensions, had little character work, and read more seriously than it was funny; Reitman estimated the effects would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and set it aside.³⁴⁵ Aykroyd kept working and finished a script of around 180 pages on January 20, 1983. He submitted it to Reitman that April, along with concept drawings by his artist friend John Daveikis and a videotape of himself in a jumpsuit holding a makeshift proton pack built from styrofoam and old radio parts.⁶⁷⁸⁹¹⁰

The meeting and the green light

Reitman focused on Aykroyd's strongest idea: a group of men operating from a firehouse and responding to supernatural emergencies the way firefighters do. He liked the concept, the equipment, the car, and the ghost-in-a-stop-sign logo, but had reservations about the fantasy elements. The two met for lunch at Art's Delicatessen in May 1983, where Reitman suggested setting the film in a modern American city, making it an origin story, and bringing in Harold Ramis. Aykroyd agreed at once.¹¹¹²¹³ The same afternoon, Reitman and Aykroyd walked to Ramis's office at The Burbank Studios; after about twenty minutes Ramis was in.¹⁴ Reitman then asked his agent, Mike Ovitz, who also represented Aykroyd, Ramis, and Murray, to set up a meeting with Columbia Pictures chairman Frank Price.¹⁵

Reitman gave Price a roughly five-minute pitch with no finished script. Price liked it, told him to keep the budget in the mid-twenties of millions, and set a deadline: the studio needed a tentpole for summer 1984, leaving about a year to write, shoot, and finish the effects.¹⁶¹⁷ With two writers, two associate producers, most of the cast, and no effects house, Ghostbusters was greenlit.

Writing the script

The first Aykroyd-Ramis collaborative draft was completed on June 6, 1983, settling on a new story the three of them agreed on; Ramis came up with making the leads parapsychologists at a university.¹⁸¹⁹ As crew came aboard, including production designer John DeCuir, cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs, costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge, and editor Sheldon Kahn, the budget was refined upward to just under $30 million.²⁰²¹ The pacing was a recurring problem: for a long time the film did not get going until the hotel scene around page 40, so the library ghost (and later the ESP test) were added to start the movie earlier.²² In this draft the team was fired from a small New England college before going to New York; the realization that the city itself mattered led to opening at the New York Public Library.²³²⁴ The love interest began as an alien fugitive named Zuul who took human female form, an idea the writers found funny but not romantic; an associated restaurant sequence and a scene where the alien wakes up as a warthog were eventually cut.²⁵²⁶²⁷²⁸²⁹

The second draft was hammered out over about two and a half weeks around the July 4th weekend at Martha's Vineyard, where Aykroyd was already living. The three worked in his basement on an old Royal electric typewriter. The hotel ghost, earlier described only as a foul-smelling amorphous vapor, became a green, potato-shaped creature.³⁰ The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, present in every draft, became the team's final encounter in this rewrite.³¹ The writers also added a fourth Ghostbuster, Winston, to serve as a grounded, skeptical voice for the audience, with his introduction delayed until after the team's first big success.³²³³ Earlier drafts ended with a grand wrap-up, including a multinational corporation called Ghostbusters International and tidy romantic resolutions, before that material was dropped.³⁴ The July rewrite was completed on July 6, and the team left Martha's Vineyard on July 10 with a strong working script; Reitman began auditions while rewriting continued.

The third draft, finished August 6, refined the film further. The villain Ivo Shandor returned in name, reimagined as a deranged surgeon, architect, and Gozer worshiper executed at Sing Sing.³⁵ Slimer's design and role were largely locked in.³⁶ Louis Tully, still written for John Candy at this stage, had earthier interests and hosted a party.³⁷ A sequence of Louis being chased by a Terror Dog onto the hood of a taxi appeared here.³⁸ The final shooting script was completed on October 7, the whole script having come together in about three months.³⁹

Casting and production

Around the start of shooting it became clear John Candy would pass on Louis Tully. Reitman called Rick Moranis the same day and sent him the script; Moranis called back two hours later to accept, and he developed Louis into the accountant seen in the finished film.⁴⁰

Bill Murray was finishing photography on The Razor's Edge in Paris and returned shortly before production. Reitman and Ramis met him at La Guardia, where he came through the terminal with a stadium horn that played dozens of fight songs.⁴¹⁴² Murray started on October 27, 1983, flying in by Concorde and going straight to work at 62nd Street and Madison.⁴³ A week before principal photography, during camera and wardrobe tests, Reitman shot a montage of the three leads in uniform running down Madison Avenue.

Principal photography began in New York in late October 1983, with a week of preliminary second unit work followed by about three and a half weeks of shooting in the city.⁴⁴⁴⁵ Some material, including most of the Tavern on the Green scenes and the Subway Ghost, was shot in the early October window before principal photography proper. The first day of principal photography covered the New York Public Library exteriors and reading room and the Irving Trust bank on Avenue of the Americas, which became the fictional Manhattan City Bank.⁴⁶⁴⁷ Dialogue continued to change during rehearsal and shooting, with scenes rearranged, some lines improvised, and others cut or looped later.⁴⁸⁴⁹⁵⁰⁵¹⁵²

The main unit moved to Los Angeles around November and December for roughly nine weeks at The Burbank Studios and area locations. The shoot started slowly, falling about seven days behind early on; assistant director Gary Daigler gave Murray a two-way radio so he and Aykroyd could wait at a nearby sushi restaurant until the crew was ready.⁵³⁵⁴ Stage 12 held the apartment interiors and hallway and the Sedgewick elevator and corridors, and DeCuir built the million-dollar Temple of Gozer set on Stage 16.⁵⁵⁵⁶⁵⁷⁵⁸⁵⁹ Los Angeles locations included the Biltmore Hotel (used for Sedgewick and 550 Central Park West scenes), a working firehouse for the interior firehouse scenes, and the Los Angeles Public Library for the downstairs stacks.⁶⁰⁶¹⁶²⁶³

Characters and casting notes

Egon Spengler's name was assembled by Ramis from "Egon Donsbach" and "Oswald Spengler." In shaping the character, Ramis also drew on Egon Schiele, the Austrian Expressionist painter, and Léon Krier, a Luxembourg architectural theorist and urban planner. Egon's distinctive hairstyle was credited by Ramis to production assistant Peggy Semtob.⁶⁴

Dana Barrett was written as a model in early drafts. Sigourney Weaver proposed making her a professional musician, a change the writers felt strengthened the character considerably. Weaver also suggested that Dana describe Venkman as resembling a game-show host, which stuck in the final film.⁶⁴

Winston Zeddemore was originally named Ramsey in Aykroyd's early drafts, conceived with an actor like Eddie Murphy in mind. Gregory Hines was also approached for the role. By the final shooting script the character had evolved significantly, and Ernie Hudson was cast.⁶⁵

After John Candy passed on Louis Tully, Michael McKean also read for the part before Rick Moranis accepted. Moranis shaped the character substantially, including improvising freely during the party scene.⁶⁴

The role of Janine Melnitz was offered to Sandra Bernhard before Annie Potts was cast.⁶⁵

For Gozer, Aykroyd traced the name partly to a Gozer Chevrolet dealership in upstate New York and to a documented English haunting in which the name reportedly appeared. Earlier drafts imagined Gozer in the likeness of game-show host Bert Parks. Reitman preferred an androgynous figure, referencing David Bowie and Grace Jones; Slavitza Jovan was cast in the role, with Paddi Edwards providing the voice.⁶⁵

During preproduction, Reitman described Slimer to the crew as "sort of like Bluto from Animal House, like the ghost of John Belushi," a comparison Aykroyd never disputed. The name "Slimer" itself emerged during post-production, arising informally from the "He slimed me" line in the Sedgewick Hotel sequence.⁶⁵

Music

Reitman engaged Elmer Bernstein to write the orchestral score months before principal photography began; Bernstein was the first crew member hired for the production. He recorded at The Burbank Studios using a 72-member orchestra, with orchestration handled by his son Peter Bernstein and by David Spear. Alongside the orchestra, Bernstein incorporated three Yamaha DX-7 synthesizers and the Ondes Martenot, a rare French electronic instrument, for which he brought a specialist player from England. Two selections from Bernstein's score were included on the commercial soundtrack album.⁶⁶

The title song, "Ghostbusters," was written and performed by Ray Parker Jr. The song was released as a single alongside the film and became the most recognized musical element of the franchise, subsequently appearing in virtually every Ghostbusters production and adaptation that followed.⁶⁷

Visual effects

The only major effects houses available, Industrial Light & Magic and Apogee, were both booked, ILM with Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones, and Star Trek III, and Apogee with Dune.⁶⁸ Producer Michael Gross consulted Don Shay, a friend since high school, and learned that Richard Edlund was leaving ILM to start his own studio.⁶⁹ Columbia fronted $5 million for Edlund to set up Boss Films (later Entertainment Effects Group), which worked exclusively on Ghostbusters.⁷⁰ Edlund, who took Reitman's offer by phone while recovering from back surgery, had a little over ten months to build the studio, develop techniques, and design and execute the work. During preproduction, freelance artists supervised by Gross produced hundreds of ghost and creature concepts that Reitman mixed and matched.⁷¹⁷²⁷³⁷⁴

Filming wrapped in early February 1984 after about fifteen weeks. Edlund's team then had less than four months to complete roughly 200 to 260 optical effects shots.⁷⁵ With a few weeks left, Reitman wanted to add many more shots; Edlund has recounted talking him down, joking that they had to do "the samurai cut."

Title clearance

Preproduction was well underway before anyone realized Filmation had produced a short-lived Saturday-morning live-action show called The Ghost Busters during the 1975-76 television season. Columbia entered negotiations to secure the title, and the talks dragged on through much of the New York location shooting, leaving the production uncertain what the film would be called.⁷⁶ To hedge, the crew prepared three different firehouse signs; the only other serious contender was "Ghoststoppers." A deal with Filmation eventually let them keep the original title, with Joe Medjuck recalling it was about four weeks into shooting before they knew for certain they could use the name.⁷⁷

Production notes

The on-screen slime was made from methylcellulose ether, a powdered thickening agent used in pharmaceuticals and food.⁷⁸
Egon's analogy for rising psychokinetic energy began as the universe described as an expanding four-dimensional balloon; only the "Twinkie" version survived in the final cut.⁷⁹
Three arms grab Dana in her chair; the design originally included a human arm, a hooked arm, and a green frog-like sucker arm, but Reitman cut the sucker arm as too cartoonish.⁸⁰
The street sinkhole was a costly stunt, around $250,000, that Reitman fought to keep because it showed the threat the team faced. The shot moved between the real Central Park West and a Columbia back-lot recreation of the lower floors of the building.⁸¹⁸²
After the film opened, Reitman ran the in-film Ghostbusters commercial on late-night TV nationwide with the on-screen number changed to a working 800 line, where callers reached an answering-machine message recorded by Aykroyd and Murray.⁸³
The film went slightly over budget, finishing at around $31 million for production, with a reported $38 million total once marketing was factored in.⁸⁴

Release

Ghostbusters opened in the United States on June 8, 1984.⁸⁵ By the final count it had grossed more than $225 million, which Don Shay's account described as making it the most successful film comedy to that point.⁸⁶

The VHS was released on October 31, 1985.⁸⁷⁸⁸ The film premiered, unadvertised, on HBO on Christmas night, December 25, 1985, then had its official HBO premiere on May 4, 1986, followed by Cinemax on May 7.⁸⁹ It premiered on broadcast television on ABC on Thursday, September 24, 1987, in an edited-for-television version with alternate takes replacing some of the more objectionable dialogue. The DVD followed on June 29, 1999, and the Blu-ray on June 16, 2009, timed to the film's 25th anniversary and the release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game. An original 114-minute test screening was completed on February 17, 1984; a "preview cut" with alternate takes, additional scenes, and early effects was later included in the 2022 4K Ultra HD gift set.

The film was localized for many foreign markets, releasing under titles including S.O.S. Fantômes (French), Ghostbusters - Die Geisterjäger (German), Los Cazafantasmas (Spanish), Os Caça-Fantasmas (Portuguese), and Ghostbusters - Acchiappafantasmi (Italian).

Legacy

Ghostbusters launched a franchise spanning a direct sequel, Ghostbusters II (1989), the animated series The Real Ghostbusters, comics, video games including Ghostbusters: The Video Game, and later films including Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024). The firehouse, the Ecto-1, the Proton Pack, the PKE Meter, the Ghost Trap, and the Containment Unit introduced here became fixtures of the series. GBFans.com maintains build references and plans for much of this gear under the equipment section of the wiki.

In our community

The 1984 film established the visual and physical vocabulary of the Ghostbusters franchise, and GBFans.com's prop-building and collecting community grew directly from enthusiasm for its iconic hardware. The Proton Pack, Ghost Trap, PKE Meter, Containment Unit, and Ectomobile introduced here have been subjects of intensive research and documentation on GBFans.com for over two decades. The Equipment section of this wiki catalogues build references, production drawings, screen-accurate specifications, and community-produced plans for most of these items, along with the flight suits, belt hardware, and accessories seen in the film.

The 2022 4K Ultra HD gift set, which includes the 114-minute preview cut with early effects and alternate scenes, generated renewed community interest in comparing production-era prop and effects details against finished-film reference.

References

Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 7. New York Zoetrope, New York NY USA, ISBN 0918432685. ("I'd been working on it, on and off, for a couple of years... I was, in fact, writing one of his lines when I heard that he had died.") ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 7. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Aykroyd presented his half-completed script to Bill Murray; when Murray responded favorably, Aykroyd took it to Ivan Reitman.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 7. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman: the script was forty or fifty pages, set in the future across dimensions, all action with little character work, with the budget running into hundreds of millions.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 95. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Aykroyd's initial draft equipped the Ectomobile with a dematerializing capability to elude police.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 67 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Aykroyd's original Ectomobile was an all-black, sinister-looking machine; cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs first pointed out a problem with it.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, pp. 7-8. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (When the finished script arrived months later, Aykroyd submitted it with conceptual illustrations and a videotape of himself in a jumpsuit with a styrofoam-and-radio-parts proton pack.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 66 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Aykroyd commissioned John Daveikis for preliminary design concepts, including an Ectomobile depicted white rather than black.) ↩
Labrecque, Jeff (2014). "Ghostbusters: An Oral History." Entertainment Weekly. ↩
Labrecque, Jeff (2014). "Ghostbusters: An Oral History," Richard Edlund quote. Entertainment Weekly. ↩
Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, p. 9. Insight Editions, San Rafael CA USA, ISBN 9781608875108. (Reitman: "It was April 1983, and I was sent Dan Aykroyd's inventive futuristic treatment...") ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 8. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman focused on the firehall concept and the ghost-in-a-stop-sign logo; they had lunch at Art's Delicatessen.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 8. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman suggested setting the film in a modern American city and telling the origin story.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 8. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman suggested a collaboration between Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 7. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Aykroyd: after the lunch meeting, he and Reitman went to Ramis's office; after about twenty minutes Ramis said, "Okay, I'm in.") ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 8. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman asked agent Mike Ovitz to set up a meeting with Columbia chairman Frank Price.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, pp. 8-9. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Price: "Keep it in the mid-twenties and you've got yourself a deal.") ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 9. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Columbia needed a major release for summer 1984, leaving about a year.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 10. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Ramis: they worked out a new story that made sense to the three of them.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 10. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Ramis: "It was my idea to set the guys as parapsychologists at a university.") ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 11. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Budget refined to just under $30 million with inputs from Edlund and DeCuir.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 11. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Kovacs, Aldredge, and Kahn joined.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 11. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman: the movie did not get going until the hotel around page 40; the library ghost and ESP scene were added.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 36 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Ramis: the team was tossed from a small New England college before going to New York, which led to using the New York Public Library for the opening.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 36 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (The prior version was set in a converted farmhouse with incessant knocking.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 44 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (The first collaborative draft's love interest was an alien fugitive that transforms into human female form.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 44 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (A diet-cola commercial inspired the transformation into a beautiful woman and a heavy-set man.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 124 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Cut June/July restaurant and carriage-horse material, with the Times Square Motor Hotel wakeup.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 44 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Ramis: Venkman wakes up with the creature as a warthog, lacking real human connection.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 126 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Cut restaurant sequence from the June and July drafts.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 78 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (In July the hotel ghost became a green, potato-shaped creature.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 197 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Stay Puft became the final encounter in the July rewrite.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 54 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Winston as the on-screen voice of the public, introduced after the first big score.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 54 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (In the July and August drafts Winston first applies as a security guard.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 203 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Earlier endings featured Ghostbusters International and wrapped up romantic loose ends.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 152 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Ivo Shandor resurfaced in the third draft as a deranged surgeon, architect, and Gozer worshiper executed at Sing Sing.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 70 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Slimer's design and action were locked in; the discovery scene changed before the final script.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 115 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Louis Tully, as scripted for John Candy, had earthier interests in the party scene.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 121 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (In the August draft a Terror Dog lands on a taxi hood before the Central Park chase.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 12. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman: the whole script came together in about three months.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 44 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Medjuck: Candy was no longer available; Moranis came up with Louis being an accountant.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 12. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman: pushing for an October start a week or two after Murray's return.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 12. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Ramis: Murray arrived at La Guardia with a stadium horn playing eighty fight songs.) ↩
Greene, James, Jr. (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, p. 41. Lyons Press, Essex CT USA, ISBN 9781493048243. (Murray started October 27; flew the Concorde from Paris and went to work at 62nd and Madison.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 12. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Late October: a week of preliminary second unit work, then three and a half weeks of principal photography.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 26. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (First and second units blanketed Manhattan starting late October 1983.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 16 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Library exteriors and reading room shot in part of a single day between a 5 a.m. call and the 10 a.m. opening.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 37 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (The Irving Trust bank became the fictional Manhattan City Bank.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 152 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Venkman's line was a last-minute insertion.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 152 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Ramis suggested the jail-scene "Everybody with us so far?" beat on set.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 156 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Mayor's office dialogue changed during rehearsals and shooting.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 160 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (The Zuul-Vinz joining was reworked and recut.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 165 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Stairwell dialogue improvised and added in looping.) ↩
Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, p. 47. Insight Editions, ISBN 9781608875108. (One shot the first LA day, three the second; production fell seven days behind.) ↩
Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, p. 47. Insight Editions, ISBN 9781608875108. (Daigler gave Murray a two-way radio so he and Aykroyd could wait at a sushi restaurant.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 130 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Fort Detmerring standing set at the Columbia Ranch.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 135 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Fort Detmerring interior filmed on a set adjacent to Dana's apartment on Stage 12.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 71 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Elevator and hotel corridors were sets on Stage 12.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 45 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Apartment interiors and hallway spanned two adjoining soundstages.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, pp. 104, 107 annotations. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (DeCuir's million-dollar rooftop temple set on Stage 16.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 81 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (The Biltmore banquet hall, used for two days.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 165 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (The "thirty-five flights of stairs" were two flights at the Biltmore, with the rest added in postproduction.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 38 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Medjuck: firehouse interiors shot in an actual three-story Los Angeles firehouse.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 32 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Library stacks filmed at the Los Angeles Public Library; the ghost was composited in.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, various pp. New York Zoetrope, New York NY USA, ISBN 0918432685; Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, various pp. Insight Editions, San Rafael CA USA, ISBN 9781608875108. (Character development and casting history for Egon, Dana, Winston, Louis, and Janine.) ↩ ↩² ↩³
Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, various pp. Insight Editions, San Rafael CA USA, ISBN 9781608875108. (Casting notes for Gozer, Slimer/Belushi connection, Winston origins, Janine casting.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Ghostbusters franchise production materials; Elmer Bernstein. (Score recorded at The Burbank Studios using a 72-member orchestra; Bernstein engaged before principal photography; Yamaha DX-7 synthesizers and Ondes Martenot used in the score.) ↩
Ray Parker Jr., "Ghostbusters" (song, 1984). Columbia Records. (Written and performed by Ray Parker Jr.; released as a single alongside the film.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 11. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Gross: most major facilities were booked; Dune at Apogee, Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones, and Star Trek III at ILM.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 11. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Gross: they learned Edlund was leaving ILM to go into business for himself.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 11. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Gross on Edlund leaving ILM.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 143 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman: hundreds of freelance ghost concepts, mixed and matched.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 11. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Artists hired under Michael Gross for free-form ghost designs.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 46. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Berni Wrightson produced some fifty conceptual illustrations.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 87 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Italian comic artist Liberatore produced eccentric ghost concepts not used in the film.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 12. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Wrapped early February; less than four months for nearly two hundred postproduction opticals.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 50 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Filmation's The Ghost Busters ran during the 1975-76 season; title negotiations dragged through New York photography.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 50 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Medjuck: about four weeks into shooting before the name was cleared; three signs made, the only other contender "Ghoststoppers.") ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 81 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Slime derived from methylcellulose ether.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 104 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Ramis: the expanding four-dimensional balloon analogy led to the Twinkie, which alone survived.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 112 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Gross: the three arms; Reitman cut the green frog-like sucker arm as too cartoonish.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 165 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Reitman: the sinkhole stunt cost about $250,000 and he insisted on keeping it.) ↩
Lofficier, Randy (June 1984). American Cinematographer, p. 66. Hollywood CA USA, ASC Holding Corp, ASIN B004WSK5RO. (Kovacs: the building was built to the second floor.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 47 annotation. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. (Gross: the post-release "junk buy" running the commercial with an 800 number reaching an answering machine voiced by Aykroyd and Murray.) ↩
Greene, James, Jr. (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, p. 56. Lyons Press, ISBN 9781493048243. (Reputed final budget of $38 million factoring in marketing.) ↩
IMDb, Ghostbusters (1984), release information. (U.S. release date June 8, 1984.) ↩
Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 13. New York Zoetrope, ISBN 0918432685. ("Ghostbusters had grossed more than $225 million.") ↩
Asbury Park Press (October 9, 1985), p. 48. ("Ghostbusters The Video Event of the Year begins October 31st.") ↩
Spook Central, "Ghostbusters On Home Video," Advertisements section. ("Available on videocassette this Halloween!") ↩
HBO/Premium Channels, May 1986 program magazines. (Official HBO premiere May 4, 1986; Cinemax May 7, 1986.) ↩

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Ghostbusters (1984)

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Plot

Origins as "Ghost Smashers"

The meeting and the green light

Writing the script

Casting and production

Characters and casting notes

Music

Visual effects

Title clearance

Production notes

Release

Legacy

In our community

References

Sign up free to join the GBFans.com community.

Sign up free to join the GBFans.com community.

Plot

Origins as "Ghost Smashers"

The meeting and the green light

Writing the script

Casting and production

Characters and casting notes

Music

Visual effects

Title clearance

Production notes

Release

Legacy

In our community

References

Footnotes