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1984 was an incredible year for movies, and Ghostbusters is arguably the best from that year. It gave us an enchanting alternate reality and has spawned five films, two animated television series, a bunch of documentaries, and so many toys. So why does it always feel like the subsequent movies we get are a pale imitation of the original? The first sequel, Ghostbusters II, was an early hint that things were never going to work out quite the same way again, and looking back on it from 2024, it feels like the kind of studio-run, bean-counted project that we expect to see in theaters even today. The first Ghostbusters was an accidentThe original film we got, an almost perfect mix of science-fiction, horror, and comedy, was not the Ghostbusters Dan Aykroyd had in mind when he first envisioned the project. The original script, set in 2012, had multiple teams of "ghost smashers" traveling between planets and dimensions. The Ecto-1 car was a black vehicle that could disappear. The original cast would have included not just Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, but also John Belushi as Peter Venkman. Belushi's passing forced a recast. Eddie Murphy was considered for Winston before Ernie Hudson stepped in. Both John Candy and Sandra Bernhard turned down the roles of Louis Tully and Janine Melnitz, respectively. Candy wanted to give Tully a German accent and a pair of dogs. Even New York City didn't play a huge role in the original idea, as the team was to be based out of a New Jersey gas station The script underwent extensive rewrites by Aykroyd, Ramis, and director Ivan Reitman to turn it into the movie we know today. Even then, the movie was on such a tight schedule that prints with unfinished visual effects were sent to theaters. Ghostbusters is such a huge movie that it's basically a part of American culture at this point--. But the pieces that fit together so perfectly came out of necessity, budget control, and improvisation. Continue Reading at GameSpot
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