30 Things You Might Not Know About Ghostbusters

1. The original concept of the movie was a futuristic tale of people traveling through time battling ghosts. 2. Dan Aykroyd, co-writer and co-star of the movie, was inspired to write the script after having reportedly buying and living in a haunted house after the success of Saturday Night Live. 3. The part of Dr. Peter Venkman was originally written for John Belushi who died during the scriptwriting process. 4. Bill Murray didn’t want to make Ghostbusters, but Columbia Pictures who made the movie agreed to finance Murray’s pet project The Razor’s Edge, which he co-wrote and starred in, on the condition he make Ghostbusters. He agreed and filmed all of his scenes for Edge first and then immediately began filming his scenes on Ghostbusters. He actually had to leave the set when his final scene of Edge filmed and board a plane and then go to begin filming Ghostbusters the same day. The Razor’s Edge, even though it was shot, prior to Ghostbusters, wasn’t released until months later and was a box office disappointment with negative criticism. The whole experience soured Murray on Hollywood that he left America and lived in France for four years, watching foreign films, almost daily at the Cinematheque in Paris, and studied history and philosophy at the Sorbonne. 5. Most of Murray’s lines were ad-libbed. He would look over the script and ad-lib depending on how the scene was written. Murray even tried to get a co-writing credit. 6. Eddie Murphy was wanted to be cast as Winston Zeddemore, who would have been a highly intelligent person, the most academically accomplished of all the Ghostbusters. However, Murphy couldn’t get away to film. Thus, the some of Zeddemore’s lines earlier in the script were scrapped or delivered by the other ghostbusters. Then, Ernie Hudson was hired to play the “everyman” ghostbuster. Incidentally, Arsenio Hall was later cast to voice Zeddemore in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon series. 7. Louis Tully was originally written as a conservative Wall Street yuppie and was going to be played by John Candy. However, Candy couldn’t work it into his schedule and Rick Moranis was cast and Louis Tully became a little geeky character. 8. Sigourney Weaver’s line “You more like a game show host” to Venkman was ad-libbed. 9. Porn star Ron Jeremy appears in one scene as an extra during a crowd scene. 10. Production began before the legal team had been able to see if the term “Ghostbusters” had been trademarked. There was a 1970s Saturday morning TV show called The Ghost Busters produced by Filmation. However, because the TV show was almost forgotten, the rights only referred to the TV show. But Filmation produced the show Ghostbusters, as they still had the TV legal rights, which was unrelated to the movie and when a cartoon show was produced on the movie, the title The Real Ghostbusters was used. 11. Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” was a hit, but Huey Lewis and the News felt the music sounded a lot like their hit song, “I Want a New Drug” and sued. The matter was settled out of court with both parties not allowed to discuss the outcome. 12. At the beginning of the movie, Venkman is conducting an experiment on college students where he is testing the effects of negative reinforcement on ESP and telepathy. This was inspired by a true experiment in which testers gave electric shocks to people being asked questions. Each time a subject got an answer wrong, the wattage was increased. But, what the test REALLY was about was to see how far people would go under orders to cause harm on other people as the people being asked questions were told to act like they were being hurt as they were never really being administered electric shocks. 13. The green glob later called “Slimer” was originally called “Onionhead” in the script. The cartoon series led to the character’s name and popularity. Aykroyd later said Slimer or Onionhead is actually the ghost of John Belushi apparent by the gluttony and disgusting nature of the character. 14.Even though the movie is set in New York City, many of the exterior scenes were filmed in Los Angeles. 15. Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler were originally professors at Columbia University, even though the college is never named. 16. The bank where they get a mortgage loan is fictitious. 17. Ray Stanz’s Revelation quote is incorrectly referenced by chapter and verse. 18. A scene mostly cut had the ghostbusters go on a call at an antique house where Stanz dresses in Civil War attire and falls unconscious while drinking a liquid only to wake up and see an female apparition hovering over him while he is lying in bed. This was later cut to be a dream sequence. 19. The scene where Louis Tully can’t get any help from a Central Park restaurant is a reference to how New York City is perceived as unfriendly and the people uncaring as the patrons go back to their meals and conversations after he passes out from seeing the demon dog. 20. William Atherton, who plays the smug EPA bureaucrat Walter Peck, said the role caused him to be typecast for a while as he would only be considered for similar characters such as in movies such as Real Genius and the first two Die Hard movies. Prior to Ghostbuster, he had been cast in leading roles in the 1970s in movies like The Sugarland Express, The Day of the Locust and Looking for Mr. Goodbar. 21. Bill Murray’s line about Peck, “This man has no dick” was later parodied in Wayne’s World as Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) holds up a cue card with the phrase, “This man has no penis” when talking with to Noah Vanderhoff, who is played by Murray’s older brother, Brian Doyle-Murray. 22. Lorenzo Music, who famously voiced Garfield in the 1980s and 1990s, was cast to voice Peter Venkman in The Real Ghostbusters. However, Murray didn’t like that and since he and the rest of the film cast had control over how their cartoon characters were portrayed, Murray asked for a different voice actor to be cast. Thus Dave Couiler, aka Uncle Joey from Full House was cast for the remainder of the cartoon series’ run. Incidentally, Music died before the first two Garfield movies were filmed and Murray was cast as Garfield. 23. The filmmakers originally intended for romance to bloom between the characters of Spengler and secretary Janine Melnitz, played by Annie Potts. Thus scenes were written specifically with just Harold Ramis and Potts. However, because of production and time, some scenes were cut or not filmed at all. At the end, it is implied there is something between Janine and Spengler when she runs up and hugs him as he exits the apartment building. 24. The cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters contains many meta references to the movie. In fact, the events of the movie are based on the “real life” exploits of the cartoon characters. There’s even references to the movie’s cast in an episode where the cartoon ghostbusters attend the premiere of the movie Ghostbusters with live-action footage from the movie. Famed writer of comic books and producer of TV shows J. Michael Straczynski helped develop the cartoon series and wrote many episodes. 25. Even though Murray was the king of ad-libbing on the set, Ramis was able to say a few that were well remembered. When Venkman tells Spengler that “This reminds me of the time you decided to drill a hole through your head,” Ramis quickly responded, “That would have worked if you hadn’t stopped me.” The scene was supposed to end with Murray’s line, but Ramis got the final laugh because he knew there was some time before Ivan Reitman, the director, could say cut. His other line, “I feel like the floor of a taxi” at the end was also ad-libbed. 26. When Zeddemore and Stanz have their talk about God, Jesus Christ and the end of the world, they are supposed to be on the way to a call, but when it was cut, people thought they were returning from a call. This explains why we see the sun beginning to rise but it takes them so long to get back to the station at which time, all the spirits have been released from the containment unit. 27. Special effects were still be completed up until the opening of the movie. Test audiences were shown a rough cut of the movie with half of the special effects missing. Regardless, the audience’s response was so overwhelming positive, it gave the filmmakers and studio the confidence they had a huge blockbuster on their hands. 28. Even though it is joked that he doesn’t have many lines and appears later in the movie, many audiences initially said they like the Winston Zeddemore character the most of all the ghostbusters. The movie was an early role for Ernie Hudson who has admitted that along with Aykroyd, he has had many real-life paranormal activity happen to him and his family. 29. Harold Ramis is credited with giving the script to Ghostbusters more of its contemporary structure and jokes as what Aykroyd had initially envisioned would have been relatively expensive and somewhat impossible with the special effects technology at the time. 30. Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman, was originally going to appear as Gozer at the end of the movie, but Reubens was unavailable, so Yugoslav model Slavita Jovan was cast and Paddi Edwards provided the demonic voice.