No matter how much time passes, Ghostbusters remains as quintessential and hilarious as it ever was.
The film’s incredible staying power has cemented it as a classic for more than 35 years.
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Below are 10+ Ghostbusters behind the scenes secrets fans didn’t know. They’re practically dripping with ectoplasm , so fire up your proton packs and let’s get started!
1. Sigourney Weaver had a very memorable (and scary) audition.
The film’s director, Ivan Reitman, claims that Dana’s possession was all Sigourney Weaver’s idea.
“She then got on all fours and started howling like a dog on my coffee table, and I was just fascinated,” Reitman told the The Guardian .
2. Dan Akroyd’s original idea was set in the future and would have been incredibly expensive to make.
During an interview with Esquire , director Ivan Reitman said:
“I read it and thought, ‘Wow, this is an amazing idea.’ But it would have cost something like $200 million to make. It took place in the future, with many groups of Ghostbusters functioning in an intergalactic setting.”
3. Famed record producer Clive Davis didn’t think the song would be a commercial success.
Of course, it eventually went on to become the #1 song in the country. According to an interview that artist Michael C. Gross gave with Esquire :
“They played it ad nauseam. Many people said to me, ‘I love your movie, but can you get them to stop playing that [expletive] song on the radio?'”
4. Dan Akroyd comes from a long line of real-life Ghostbusters!
The way Akroyd describes it, he was surrounded by spiritualists his entire life. You know, one of those “my father and his father before me” type of deals.
The Akroyd’s are seasoned vets at communing with spirits and the dead.
But it doesn’t stop with the paranormal. Dan has become fascinated with the legends of the Crystal Skulls!
He’s even started a business based on the folklore! Crystal Head vodka is available for purchase in thousands of stores across North America.
If you’re a fan of conspiracy theories, you’re going to want to check this out!
5. Dan Akroyd managed to upset his hero, Isaac Asimov.
Writer Isaac Asimov was one of the godfathers of modern science fiction as well as a proverbial giant in the field of literature.
Akroyd describes a chance encounter where he bumped into the writer on the street to Esquire :
“Hi, we’re shooting this paranormal adventure fantasy comedy named *Ghostbusters.”
Isaac was apparently not happy at how filming had disturbed the peace of his building. Dan remarked that he found the whole situation a bit ironic: the fact that someone they all admired so much in-turn hated them with vigor!
I wonder if Asimov ever ended up seeing the film?
6. Slimer was inspired by John Belushi.
In the beginning, Dan Akroyd wanted Belushi to play the role of Peter Venkman. Sadly, Belushi died of a drug overdose before the cameras even began to roll. As a way to pay tribute to their fallen friend, Akroyd requested that Slimer share his likeness.
Which didn’t sit well with SFX wiz, Steve Johnson:
“I didn’t know until the last [expletive] day,” Johnson lamented to The National Post .
“I’d been working for six months sculpting hundreds of Slimer variations, and they finally said ‘make him look more like Belushi’ and I said what the [expletive] are you talking about?”
So Steve did what anyone would do to channel the spirit of John Belushi:
“I pulled out a stack of headshots of John Belushi, poured a gram of cocaine on it and started chopping lines up. I was three grams into the night and in a cocaine-induced delusional paranoia, and I literally thought that John Belushi’s ghost came to me to help me out.”
7. Dan Akroyd pitched Harold Ramis the project in just one sentence.
Ramis recalled during a conversation with Esquire that:
“They came by after lunch and Danny gave me the one-line version of it, which basically was ‘ghost janitors in New York.'”
8. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was almost cut from the film entirely.
According to Akroyd, the malice of the character became muddled once they blew him up to over 150-feet.
There was a serious amount of second-guessing, but ultimately they rolled the dice and audiences everywhere ate it up!
9. Another famous Canadian comedian turned down the role of Louis Tully!
“The original screenplay, we wrote it for John Candy ,” Reitman said during an interview on the Ghostbusters YouTube channel.
“I remember sending it to Candy because I had just worked with him on Stripes . John didn’t get it. He kept saying, ‘Hey, well, maybe can I do him with a German accent?’”
10. The film ran into legal trouble over the name *Ghostbusters*.
There was already a live-action TV show that bore the same name!
Producer Joe Medjuck told Esquire “I was on the phone with someone at Columbia, and I held the phone up and said, “Look, I got 300 extras on the street yelling, ‘Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters.’ You gotta clear that title.”
11. Filming caused traffic chaos in New York.
Actor and writer Harold Ramis told Esquire that: “When we were shooting the big climactic scene on Central Park West and 65th Street, we stopped traffic in 90 percent of Manhattan.”
Can you imagine getting stuck behind the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on your evening commute?!
