Trivia / Ghostbusters (1984)

• Acting for Two: In one Deleted Scene, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd play two random homeless men.
• Actor Allusion: In the jail scene, Venkman suddenly breaks out into a "lounge singer" rendition of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town." This mimics the style of his recurring Nick Winters character on Saturday Night Live.
• Career Resurrection: Dan Aykroyd was building off the success of Trading Places, which assured studios that he could be a comedy star without the late John Belushi as his co-star. This film's success (which Aykroyd co-wrote with co-star Harold Ramis) further proved he could indeed mesh well with others, thus assuring him a fruitful and extensive career in Hollywood.
• Christmas Rushed: Ivan Reitman liked some ideas in Dan Aykroyd's original script, but proposed a structural overhaul to focus on the guys going into business. He pitched the movie to Columbia Pictures, who gave them a great budget but a deadline of about 14 months (May 1983-June 1984), but they hadn't even written the shooting script. They got something together in two weeks but were rewriting everything as it went along. Winston was supposed to be hired when they first get started but got pushed towards the middle of the movie after Eddie Murphy turned down the role. There were numerous Special Effect Failures because it was basically just the test footage, but they tightened up the editing to keep it from being too noticeable.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Netherlands: The Supernatural Super Spectacle
  • Taiwan: Devil Buster
  • Vietnam: Ghost Hunting Squad
  • France: S.O.S. Ghosts
• Creator Backlash:
  • Ivan Reitman didn't like the deluxe LaserDisc edition of his movie, because the higher-density lighting that the format allowed made a lot of the matte work in his film too obvious for viewers to ignore.
  • Ernie Hudson says it was hard not to feel hurt by how the studio sidelined Winston and kept him off of promotional material. It took him a few years to realize that none of this mattered to the fans and that Winston was beloved, which allowed him to shed his resentment and embrace the franchise and fandom.
• Cut Song: Elmer Bernstein wrote a complete score for the film, parts of which in the final version got replaced by the songs from the soundtrack instead. Thus, several up-beat versions of the Ghostbusters Theme slipped into obscurity.
• The Danza: Two throwaway examples in the first ten minutes: Alice Drummond has an opening scene cameo as Alice the frightened librarian, and Jennifer Runyon as Jennifer, the test subject for whom Peter compromises the scientific method.
• Defictionalization: Although half of the prop sign from the sequel has been inside since filming in the 1990s, the firehouse of Hook and Ladder Company 8, which served as the exterior of the Ghostbusters headquarters, now has an actual ghostbusters sign displayed out front, which was added after fans raised money to install it in 2020.
• Deleted Scene: Many sequences were shot but removed from the film. A couple of the following were added as extras to the Criterion Collection CAV LaserDisc release:
  • Several shots in the sequence where Peter, Ray, and Egon are thrown off campus were cut.
  • Several scenes throughout the film with Janine and Egon were cut.
  • The first time Peter leaves Dana's apartment, he passes by and says "What a woman" to Louis after the latter locks himself out of his own apartment (again).
  • Slimer is discovered by two newlyweds at the Hotel Sedgewick. Also cut was a Ghostbuster inspection of the room.
  • A policeman tries to ticket the Ecto-1, but the car won't let him.
  • Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd play two bums who witness Louis being chased by Vinz Clortho. This scene was removed because the filmmakers felt the audience would be confused by seeing Murray and Aykroyd in different roles in the same movie.
  • Ray and Winston inspect Fort Detmerring, where Ray dresses in an old General's coat and falls asleep. When he awakes, he sees a female ghost above his bed. What happens next was kept and used in the montage in the middle of the film.
  • Louis encounters two muggers in Central Park during the ghost montage.
  • Peter and Ray discuss matters with the Mayor outside City Hall.
  • Janine giving Egon a coin for luck before he goes off with the other Ghostbusters to fight Gozer; they are interrupted by Peter. A fragment of this scene was later used in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
  • The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man sequence ends with his large hat falling to the ground.
  • After Gozer is defeated, Louis awkwardly asks Dana if they had sex while possessed. Dana firmly denies it.
• Descended Creator: Harold Ramis really had no intention of starring in the film, only writing it. But he decided to star as Egon after he felt he was the best person suited for the role.
• Development Gag: The dream ghost was nicknamed by the cast and crew as, of course, "Succubus".
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Ivan Reitman shot alternate scenes removing much of the profanity for television broadcast, with dialogue just as good as the original.
  • A series of alternative takes for the Ghostbusters' local commercial were released as a bonus in Ghostbusters: The Video Game. Many of these contain alternative names for their business in case a deal with Filmation (the studio which created the live-action series The Ghost Busters) couldn't be brokered. Such names include "Ghoststoppers" and "Ghostblasters" (ironically enough, there's an interactive dark ride called "Ghost Blasters").
• Dueling Works: With 1984's other much-less-kid-friendly-than-it-appears horror comedy, Gremlins. Ghostbusters soundly creamed Gremlins at the box office. . . except in New York City. Both have gone on to be more-or-less equally loved quirky nostalgia classics, however.
• Executive Meddling: The reason Winston is a lesser character compared to other Ghostbusters—when Ernie Hudson signed on, Winston was in the script from page eight (rather than toward the end of Act 1), and was by far the most technically competent and qualified of the Ghostbusters. Aykroyd apparently still blames himself for Hudson's character being sidelined. (As What Could Have Been below shows, the more prominent Winston was even written with Eddie Murphy in mind.)
• Follow the Leader: This movie was such a huge hit that comedies with paranormal/horror underpinnings were a constant for the rest of the 1980s. Between the release of it and its sequel in 1989 came Teen Wolf, Transylvania 6-5000, Once Bitten, Haunted Honeymoon, Vamp!, The Monster Squad (which is also a variant on The Goonies), Ghost Fever, My Demon Lover, Beetlejuice, Vibes (also one of several Romancing the Stone wannabes), the film adaptations of Little Shop of Horrors and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, High Spirits, and Scrooged (also starring Bill Murray). The film adaptation of Howard the Duck owes a lot to it in its second half. One could spend an afternoon charting how many up-and-coming stars had major roles in one or more of these^note not to mention Transylvania 6-5000 actually brought Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis together as a couple and paved the way for one of the most successful straight horror films of the decade, The Fly (1986)!, or how many films incorporated talent from Ghostbusters in front of or behind the camera, or the small franchises that Teen Wolf and Beetlejuice spawned...
• The Foreign Subtitle:
  • Germany: Ghostbusters: The Ghost Hunters
  • Norway: Ghostbusters: The Ghost League
• Genius Bonus: Drilling a hole through one's head is an actual practice known as trepanation which has historically been used to treat all sorts of things from head wounds to demonic possession.
  • While Peter first handles Zuul!Dana with his usual level of casual horndoggery, once he twigs that she's possessed he immediately takes control of the situation as a trained exorcist should.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Upon its release, the film became the number one hit in America except for, ironically, New York City. NYC citizens ended up being so enraged by the film's constant closing of their streets for shooting that they basically boycotted it. According to the DVD Commentary for Gremlins, NYC ended up being the only city where Ghostbusters lost out to the creature feature.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Ernie Hudson has said that while the immediate cast and crew was very welcoming he always felt snubbed at the studio level for his involvement in the film. Not helped by the fact his role was originally introduced on page 8 before moving to halfway through the movie, but none of the posters showed him with the other three (it wasn't until the Blu-Ray release that used a modified image of the foursome confronting Gozer on the cover, giving him his due). He is placed eighth in the credits, below William Atherton. He credits the fans for not letting the studio forget that he is a Ghostbuster too.
  • On the Ghostbusters documentary Cleanin' Up the Town, Annie Potts recalls being annoyed with Bill Murray when it came time to shoot one of her first scenes and he arrived hours late and not knowing his lines. His attempts to lighten the mood just rubbed her the wrong way, so when she confronted him about it, she told him to "stand on your fucking mark and say your fucking line", to which the crew applauded.
• I Am Not Spock: According to the DVD Commentary, the movie ruined William Atherton's life, what with random people yelling "Hey, dickless!" at him on the streets. Atherton was then typecast into "asshole" roles for the next decade (see Die Hard and Bio-Dome, among others) and his refusal to reprise the role in the sequel led to the filmmakers having to write in a Suspiciously Similar Substitute played by Kurt Fuller. However, Atherton ultimately did return to the role forty years later in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
• Improv: Given the comedy background of most of the cast, there are numerous ad-libs and alternate lines that was accepted into the movie.
• One for the Money; One for the Art: Bill Murray agreed to do this movie only on the condition that Columbia Pictures finance a remake of The Razor's Edge with him as the star. The remake was made and released earlier the same year as this movie.
• Playing Against Type: Before this film, Sigourney Weaver was known for serious movies, but she had done a lot of comedy at Yale Drama School and wanted to show that side of herself.
• Recycled Set: The hallway scenes were shot on a set originally built for the movie Rich and Famous.
• Referenced by...: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Science Imitates Art: Zuul is a species of ankylosaur named after one of the demonic hellhounds that serves Gozer, the dinosaur having a horned head that resembles the beast.
• Throw It In!: There are varying accounts of how much of the final films were improvised, from a few select lines to a good majority of the films.
  • In the Ghostbusters' commercial, Egon looking down to find his mark was an actual flub by Harold Ramis that everyone agreed fit his character.
  • When Peter mentions the time Egon tried to drill a hole in his head, Egon's response ("That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me") was actually ad-libbed by Ramis.
  • According to Harold Ramis on the DVD Commentary, Ray sliding down the Firehouse Pole and his excitement during the tour scene wasn't scripted. When the cast and crew got on location in Los Angeles (where the Firehouse interior was shot), Aykroyd took one look at the pole and genuinely became excited and wanted to slide down it. They decided to incorporate it into the scene, as it fits Ray's childlike enthusiasm.
  • During Peter eagerly running over when Dana walks in, Bill Murray just barely managed to clear the gate he jumps over, and you can clearly hear his foot hit it.
  • The party scene where Louis mingles with his party guests (commenting on the price of the salmon, and so on) is not only taken in one continuous shot, but is almost entirely improvised.
  • Peter's line at the hotel elevators about the supposed cockroach biting off people's heads was an improv.
  • The crossing the streams at the end was written at the last moment to figure out a way the Ghostbusters would be able to defeat Gozer.
  • Because of the fraught production cycle and the improv-based background of the leads, so much of the movie was improvised and so many draft versions exist that when Jason Reitman attempted to host a full-cast table reading of the film as part of his Live Read series, no final shooting script that accurately reflected the finished film was available; a pseudo-shooting script cobbled together from various drafts plus transcripts of the cast's various ad-libs was ultimately used.
  • Contrary to popular belief The part where the bookcase falls over and Peter asks Ray "Has this ever happened to you before?" was shot roughly according to the original script.
• Tie-In Cereal: The cereal has fruit-flavored, no logos and marshmallow ghosts.
• Troubled Production: The journey from script to screen was fraught with production difficulties, cost overruns, and a production team that was completely unprepared for a project of that size, as this Vanity Fair feature explains:
  • The script was a labor of love for Dan Aykroyd, who was inspired by his family's history conducting spirit channeling and seances in their northern Ontario home. The project was originally envisioned as a buddy comedy with Aykroyd and John Belushi, but things immediately hit a snag early on when Belushi died midway through the scripting process, throwing Aykroyd's original idea out the door. In response, Aykroyd asked fellow Saturday Night Live cast member Bill Murray to come onboard with the project. Murray was reluctant because he was trying to branch out into more dramatic films. Aykroyd managed to sway him by suggesting he tell the studio he'll do the film in exchange for them financing a remake of The Razor's Edge he wanted to star in. (It was also noted by sources that Murray refused to commit to the project officially until the 11th hour, a trend which would manifest itself later on down the line with the sequels.)
  • Soon after, Ivan Reitman came onboard to direct, while Harold Ramis agreed to not only act as the third member of the group, but also help Aykroyd rewrite the script. When the idea and production team were pitched to Columbia Pictures chairman Frank Price in 1983, Reitman threw out a pie-in-the-sky budget of $25 million—and Price agreed. Reitman came to realize immediately after that this would mean they would need to re-write, shoot, and edit the film in roughly a year so it could hit its projected summer 1984 release date.
  • The script rewrites got underway immediately, with the group (sans Murray, who was filming The Razor's Edge) decamping to Martha's Vineyard and working around the clock to get the plot hammered out. Large chunks of the plot (which Reitman later admitted were too shocking) were chopped out. The team soon realized that they would need more than 200 effects shots to see their vision brought to the screen, and most of the other major effects houses were busy with tentpole films. In response, Reitman got visual effects supervisor Richard Edlund to create his own FX house, Boss Film Studios. The only problem was that by the time all the necessary arrangements were completed, the team was 10 months out from a release date without a single frame of footage to show for it. Designers began creating creatures and ghosts for a script that hadn't been fully completed at that point.
  • Filming got underway in October 1983 and everything began to run smoothly, though the team soon hit a snag when they realized that the "Ghostbusters" trademark had been used by a similar property, a 1975 Filmation-produced children's series called The Ghost Busters. The team attempted to work around this by having different logos bearing the names Ghostbreakers and Ghoststoppers, though Columbia eventually negotiated the rights to the name (in a bit of serendipity, the studio head who approved the film at Columbia ended up leaving and getting a job at Universal Pictures, rights owners of The Ghost Busters, and he was instrumental in approving the rights to the name). The rest of the shoot was trouble-free.
  • Production hitches reared their head again once shooting was completed. Edlund's FX studio, which was already working around the clock with multiple effects teams, was ordered by Reitman to require an additional 100 FX shots (which prompted him to, as the feature explains, "meet (Reitman) in the parking lot with my samurai sword"), though this number was eventually trimmed down. The first industry screening was an unmitigated disaster, with Frank Price being met with long stares and regrets after he found himself laughing alone in a screening room. Several of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man suits caught on-fire, and the FX takes were barely edited in to the final print just before it went to theaters. Yet the final film was a smash hit, grossing nearly $300 million worldwide and igniting a wave of Expanded Universe offerings including an action figure line and animated series.
• Uncredited Role: Paddi Edwards was uncredited as the voice of Gozer.
• Viral Marketing: The "No Ghost" poster with "Coming To Save the World" on it was in New York City subways for months before release.
• What Could Have Been: See here
• Word of God: Harold Ramis stated in the commentary that it was one of the first movies to use the word "slime" as a verb.
• Working Title: Ghostsmashers, Ghoststoppers, and Ghostblasters. These alternate titles were all considered in the event that Filmation didn't allow Columbia to use the name Ghostbusters. There are even alternate takes of the commercial available online where the other names are used just in case.
• Written by Cast Member: Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, specifically.

---