Ghostbusters Retrospective Directors Cut

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Hello, we're here at Sony Picture Studios in Culver City, California to celebrate Ghostbusters, one of my favorite movies, probably one of yours as well. Today we're here with the director Ivan Wrightman. We're here with coowwriter and star Dan Akroyd to talk about a movie that made us laugh, spooked us a little bit, and keeps us coming back for more.

[00:00:21]It's strange in your neighborhood.

[00:00:25]Who you going to call?

[00:00:27]>> Ghostbusters.

[00:00:29]>> Something weird.

[00:00:31]>> Ghostbusters is a movie that seems as alive and well today as when you guys made it. Mr. Ivan Wrightman, Dan Akroyd.

[00:00:39]Let's talk a little bit about Ghostbusters today. When you guys look back on this movie, what do you see? How does it uh how does it echo for you?

[00:00:48]>> I'll let the boss go first. Well, this is the real boss. We uh it feels great.

[00:00:54]Look, it was one of my favorite sort of professional experiences ever. It was really one of my favorite personal experiences. The writing process with Harold and Dan and the shooting in New York. It um it was a remarkable time.

[00:01:10]The city was very generous with us. Um, we were all feeling good and we had a sense really from the very first day that we were doing something unique.

[00:01:21]>> Sure. You know, you mentioned New York and that there's that classic image in my mind of the Ghostbusters running down the street New York. That's what I think of. It really was about the city in that time, wasn't it, Dan?

[00:01:32]>> Uh, well, the city is a character in the film. We were successful in in conveying that. Um, and u it was it was the Reagan years, of course. Uh and uh one political analyst said it was the perfect movie for the Reagan years because uh our uh our opposition was the EPA. Here we were we were new entrepreneurs as a startup company if you will and we were contravening environmental laws. So nothing politically correct there about the Ghostbusters and it very much hued to the time in terms of what was going on in the city in the 70s. The Dinkens [ __ ] cheers.

[00:02:06]>> Sure. you know, and looking around here, we're obviously surrounded by the uh the iconography of this franchise. Ivan, you were saying, too, it looks different to you. It looks different than when you first saw it. Well, I was just looking at the Ectomobile and uh I remember how complex it seemed when we first had it on the street and we saw it all decked out probably in a live environment here because we're in a on a stage in a Hollywood stage. You know, its artificiality or its sort of uniqueness doesn't sort of stand out quite the same way it did 30 years ago as it drove downtown where it was remarkable. people stopped and started looking at it right away cuz of course no one had ever heard of the movie. So there wasn't any of the familiarity that exists today and talking about the way that you know it's lightning in a bottle. I mean there was so many things. I mean there was the the imagery, the logo, the cast, the script, the the everything in the place, the music, there were so many things. Were you prepared for how big it got?

[00:03:09]>> I had just come from JFK to pick up, believe it or not, Bill Murray who was arriving. It was a week before shooting began, but we were also doing uh some camera tests that day and also wardrobe tests. And for the wardrobe test, I thought, well, let's just shoot one of those sort of montage pieces when they first become Ghostbusters. And the it's at first the three Ghostbusters just running down the streets in their uniforms. It was Madison Avenue around 61st. And I sort of just look up and I see them for the first time and I got this amazing shiver up my spine and I said, "Wow, that's a fabulous image." I didn't even know why it was special, but uh I just had the sense at that moment that we were doing something that was going to work.

[00:03:53]>> Damn. For you, what what was it like that day or wearing the gear? And >> you know, I I sort of uh I knew that the the look of the thing was going to be cool. Um, I I guess it was, you know, Billy and I used to go home for lunch cuz I lived right up right above, uh, Colombia there in the valley, uh, and I could be at the studio within 8 minutes.

[00:04:11]So, we used to go home to lunch sometimes. And, uh, and and I guess we were having lunch and Billy was, you know, kind of looking over out over my pool and we were just sitting there and, you know, and, uh, feeling really fortunate to be doing what we were doing and he said, you know, I said, you know, we've we've uh, we've all got something really, really special here. I remember driving back to the studio and thinking, "Wow, if he's admitting to this, if he's admitting to this, >> you know, cuz his [ __ ] detector is really high."

[00:04:38]>> Yeah.

[00:04:39]>> Then uh then we we probably do have something that's that's going to going to work on a big big way.

[00:04:44]>> We are on the threshold of establishing the indispensable defense science of the next decade. Professional paranormal investigations and eliminations. The franchise rights alone will make us rich beyond our wildest dreams.

[00:04:58]>> Look around us today. I mean, not only do we have the films in it that they're alive and well within the public mind, but the comic books, the video games, the gear, and the the inflatable Staypuffed Man right there that I'm going to take home with me. I think >> someone's going to fight you for that.

[00:05:14]>> Tell us a little bit about the Staypuffed Man. How did we find him?

[00:05:17]>> You know, Dan Dan's the the real genius behind all of this. He wrote a script called Ghostbusters for himself and John Belalushi. How long ago was that, Dan?

[00:05:28]Late 81 really was when I really started to write it in late ' 81. Yeah.

[00:05:32]>> And of course John exited our universe and um and and it just languished for a little bit and I think you sent it to me. I I think at some point you spoke to Bill about perhaps picking up the mantle and he sent it to me >> and there was a lot of effects. It would have cost about $300 million in 1984 I think to make this film. But there was these brilliant things. There was at its heart this wonderful central idea that here are a group of guys sort of operating much like firemen >> but instead of putting out fires they were catching you know supernatural things and I think the idea of the fireh hall was there the no ghost symbol this wonderful thing you know was right in the script that Danny sent me and and amongst the hundred odd uh special effects monsters that were there. There was something called the State Puff Marshmallow Man and uh I mean it it happened on page 20 or 30 and it was just really one of many things. Yeah, it definitely was huing more towards, you know, the underworld, uh, that type of franchise. And I think we were right to to lighten it up. And well, what happened at Art Stell in our first meeting was you said, "How about bringing Ramos >> aboard to write?" And of course, you know, I I I would he do it. Of course, uh, that I was most welcome to that concept. And then the first time that uh that that uh that Ramos sat down to talk about it, he was fully conversant with with all with all of the original material that was going through my mind when when I wrote the first script, which is, you know, the the history of mediumship. He knew who Madame Levatsky was, the psychics, he knew who the Fox sisters were. He was aware of all these names of of of Swedenborg, of all the spiritualism, the spiritualist movement at the turn of the century. also Zachariah Sitchin and uh ancient uh biblical myths. And so his frame of reference was massive and he got all the references. He knew in the original script he uh he he he knew what I was trying to trying to do there by bringing in the uh the vernacular and the real science of of the paranormal into into a comedy. So you although he did not believe in the afterlife, he did >> uh have a great sense of uh who the operators were in spiritualism at the turn of the century from Conan Doyle to uh Crooks and Lodge and all the scientists who were researching uh consciousness after death. Harold knew all about them.

[00:07:58]>> This is big Peter. This is very big.

[00:07:59]There's definitely something here.

[00:08:02]>> This reminded me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Do you remember that?

[00:08:06]>> That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me. I'm >> What else can you tell us about Harold and and uh and this project and and uh just sort of the spirit he brought to it?

[00:08:15]>> I saw him not only as a writer but as an actor. I produced a show off Broadway called the National Ampoon Show with Bill Murray, Gilda Rner, Brian Doyle Murray and uh Harold Ramos and who am I leaving out? Somebody very famous John Belalushi. And um this is prior to Saturday Night Live. And what I remember from that show is that Harold Ramos was every much as capable as all these wonderfully later to become famous uh people. And >> it's the reason I put him in Stripes.

[00:08:47]You know, he helped write Stripes. So, it was natural we were talking about Ghostbusters right after Stripes and I thought he would be an extraordinary help in the writing and also he would be this sort of wonderful odd duck in this trio of guys that then later becomes a quartet. It wouldn't have been the movie that it became without Harold. No doubt about it. You know, again, his intelligence, the breadth of knowledge that he had about quantum physics and and spiritualism and myth all all the way through uh the material, his his knowledge came came into uh >> and he took that character that Egon character was so perfect for him. Yeah.

[00:09:28]>> You know, and uh I remember him trying on that sort of >> I think it's a 1940s jacket that our costume designer found and that was it.

[00:09:37]He never took it off with the vest and >> and then we added that great haircut and >> he just, >> you know, brought himself because he's not like that really.

[00:09:48]>> But there's a part of him that's like that and he was able to really create this very original character.

[00:09:54]>> Egan, I'm going to take back some of the things I said about you.

[00:09:58]>> The steady cam at that point was cutting edge. Uh that was your first work with it. In a film like this, I thought it was very important to shoot effective masters uh where you see many of the characters in the scene work together.

[00:10:13]One of the remarkable things about watching these guys is how good they are together. And and it's it's wonderful to see them in a performance where you don't just have to edit to each one.

[00:10:25]There's a real power to watching one of them do it and see the reaction shot on still in the frame and the other two guys doing something as well. And I felt the the film should have a real fluid look to it. And Llo Kovac was our cameraman, one of the great cameramen ever. He's he's no longer with us unfortunately. and he just did this wonderful job and was able to um meld, you know, we we did uh front of the lens mats through glass um uh which really people haven't used very much of um in a long time. And we had puppets being sort of included into live action stuff. And it um it it all worked pretty damn good for 1984. and and it looks good now. I mean, in the same way that Star Wars looks good and Wizard of Oz, movies that have a complete and interior statement about their universe feels complete and whole. I mean, the movie feels true to itself. So, it it ages very well.

[00:11:26]>> Yeah. And John Dur, who was the production designer, I think we worked with him by by the time I worked with John Deir senior, he was in his 80s, I think. Uh he was nominated 18 times for Academy Awards. I think I think the last of which was Hello Dolly or one of those great musicals. He built Cleopatra about eight times. This whole idea of the what that rooftop would work with the gates that open really came out of his extraordinary imagination. And we started building our writing around things that came from him. Uh where I I would present, you know, to Harold and and Dan, look, uh this is kind of rooftop. We added eight stories to the building that's actually there at 65th and Park uh Central Park West. And even the the use of the dogs, those dog statues and all the gargoyles that sort of iconic visualizations in the movie sort of all all developed quickly as we were building uh in pre-production for the film.

[00:12:26]>> And it's it's such a sense of scale too.

[00:12:28]>> Yeah, the scale because he was the guy who did Cleopatra, so he was bringing some of that there >> and it was that transitional moment where analog special effects were shifting over to digital special effects. Most of our effects, virtually all the effects were analog. Many of them were done live on the set, which was very helpful to the performers and I think we got a lot of extra humor from it as well because the actors had something really real to play with.

[00:12:55]>> Yeah. And I bombarded them with wind and and wetness and slime and you know so they were constantly in a kind of physical situation beyond just sort of playing the scene.

[00:13:11]>> We came, we saw, WE KICKED ITS ASS. DID YOU see it? What is it?

[00:13:15]>> We got it.

[00:13:17]>> What is it? Will there be any more of them? Sir, what you had there was what we refer to as a focused non-terminal repeating fantasm or a class 5 full roaming vapor. Real nasty one, too.

[00:13:28]>> There's the script, there's the actor, and then there's performance. You know, the the the triangle of it and and what where those connect. What's the character that seems the most different on the screen than on the page? It was who was the the maybe the performer that took the character into a most surprising direction?

[00:13:44]>> Well, I guess you got to say Murray. You know, I mean, we we we had the script.

[00:13:48]It was there, but >> but you guys knew Murray's voice. We all knew Murray's voice. We had all worked with him.

[00:13:53]>> And I'd say >> he brought it. Yeah.

[00:13:55]>> Oh, he brings an extraordinary amount of top spin and sort of adds his own stuff.

[00:13:59]>> I guess also Lewis, too. You know, uh Morannis did a beautiful job. Words are just words there. And then with what he did with them, uh you know, he's as vital to the success and the appeal of the movie as as any one of the Ghostbusters. Morannis is is in there as a major pillar of the story and of the way it turned out.

[00:14:20]>> In terms of shifting from the original screenplay though, the original screenplay, I don't know if you remember, we wrote it for John Candy. I remember sending it to Canyon because I had just worked with him again on Stripes and um John didn't get it. He he kept saying, "Hey, well, maybe can I do him with a German accent?" And I was a little hesitant right away. I said, "It's kind of an odd thing. It's a very American New York-based movie." and he was looking for he was looking for a handle and we got into the very uncomfortable conversation and finally it was clear that he was not going to do it. And I literally called Rick Morannis the same day and sent him the script the same day that Candy had turned it down. And Rick called me like two hours after he got it and they said, "Please thank Candy for turning this down. This is amazing. I know what to do with this."

[00:15:09]>> I was just exercising. I taped 20-minute workout on my machine and played it back at high speed. So, it only took 10 minutes. I got a great workout. Good.

[00:15:15]>> You want to come in for a mineral water or something?

[00:15:17]>> Oh, I'd really like to, um, Lewis, but I have to go to rehearsal now. Excuse me.

[00:15:21]>> No sweat.

[00:15:22]>> So much of the movie is is Rick. He holds up a whole part of it. He's his his strength and his power as a performer >> is absolutely vital. It would be like, >> you know, the ecto without a transmission if it weren't >> if it weren't uh if he weren't in there.

[00:15:36]It's interesting that he could be so feckless but so likable, you know, like he really the audience loves him.

[00:15:42]>> Yeah.

[00:15:42]>> Even though he is the character comes across.

[00:15:44]>> That's what the great comic performers have that sort of they take us with them wherever they go. Even when they go into into some relatively dark black place.

[00:15:53]>> Sure.

[00:15:54]>> I think what's special about these guys, they're the smartest guys in the room.

[00:15:57]Even when they're acting silly or when they're making mistakes.

[00:16:01]>> Are you Alice menstruating right now?

[00:16:04]What has that got to do with it?

[00:16:07]>> Back off, man. I'm a scientist.

[00:16:10]>> Ray, it's moving. Come on.

[00:16:12]>> There's something about high intelligence working in a kind of big physical way >> in a physical comedy that is very endearing uh to our audience.

[00:16:23]>> Yeah, it helps the center hold too. I mean, as far as like it feels like uh there's something to learn or have fun with as it goes along.

[00:16:30]>> We thank Harold for for the elevated tone of a lot of it. Uh, and also the tradition at Second City of always just trying to be at the top of of your intelligence and then maybe you're going to reach the the bottom of someone else's.

[00:16:43]>> Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by [ __ ] here.

[00:16:48]>> They caused an explosion.

[00:16:50]>> Is this true?

[00:16:52]>> Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.

[00:16:55]>> What What were some of the things you would circle as you look back now as the challenge and opportunity of this movie?

[00:17:00]You know, the really the first challenge was how it got made and how quickly it got made >> and how everyone involved from uh from the creative side of it to the studio to the special effects uh team really took this huge gamble and leap. I really sort of did a 10-line pitch of the movie. There was the earlier draft, but it was really not true to what the movie was going to be that we were going we were all setting off to make at that moment. And so I pitched that movie that was yet to be on paper. And I remember Frank Price asking, "Well, how much do you think it'll cost?" And of course, I had no idea what it was going to cost.

[00:17:40]Stripes had cost 10 million. So I multiplied that by three. And I said, "Well, 30." Really, just pulling the number out of thin air. And they said, "Okay, we'll do that." And and I suddenly realized, "Oh, they're going to make this movie." And they just said, "Yes." and he said, "We'll make it with with the cast that you just uh mentioned." And uh but you have to have it ready. Uh I think it was June 9th or 10th, 1984.

[00:18:05]And um so that was 13 months after that moment. There was no screenplay. There was no We had the cast and we had a brilliant idea, but there was no special effects team. You know, there was one great special effects house, Industrial Light and Magic, and it was already tied up doing the new Spielberg movie, and so we knew we had no, we couldn't go to them, and we had to create our own. Colia actually fronted $5 million to Richard Edund, and he started his own Boss Films, I think it was called, and it was the start of his own special effects house that was exclusively working on Ghostbusters. Uh, my favorite time on this whole movie, frankly, was when the three of us, Dan, Harold, and I went to Martha's Vineyard.

[00:18:51]We each had a house. Akroyd was already living there. And, um, we spent, I think, two and a half weeks around the July 4th weekend and basically hammered out this new draft of the >> in my basement so we wouldn't look out at the sea with an old Royal electric typewriter. And uh it was just constantly being rewritten, re-edited, recommented on. And really uh by the time we left there, which was about the 10th of July, >> Mhm.

[00:19:18]>> we had a pretty good script. It wasn't the script we shot, but it was enough of a script for us to sort of say, well, we need this character, we need that character down the hall, we need a woman. And you know, I could start auditioning people. and um while the rewriting continued and we were shooting the movie in October and it came out in June.

[00:19:37]>> And then as far as music uh just like special effects uh music is also a character just like New York is a character. Music in this film I mean there there's the great pop hit everybody knows and then also there's Elmer Bernste.

[00:19:50]>> Yeah. people. What's interesting again retrospectively when you look back 30 years in 1984 the the Ray Parker hit was the number one hit in the country for that year and it's what people remembered but really when you watch the movie again what's really resonant for viewers is Elmer Bernstein's remarkable score I remember when he played me the very first main theme using the on martin which was a 19th century keyboard instrument that sounds very much like a Moog synthesizer and it's played in the vibr of that high sort of very spiritual ghostly like sound and there's great weight in the score as well. I mean he was a composer that really knew how to use a brass section and uh and and orchestrate for it and and all that weight sort of comes together to make these scenes really serious. And so by the time we're on top of that building in the last act, it's really working.

[00:21:15]I remember watching it in those first screenings with audiences. They were really enthralled >> in a way that frankly surprised me because I I was always thinking of the comedy and and how that was going to work and really what was made me feel really good as a director is that how involved emotionally involved and how frankly frightened the audience was at a certain point. Yeah, >> there was a real good old-fashioned classic Hollywood score with uh with a full orchestra doing it.

[00:21:45]>> Who are you guys?

[00:21:47]>> We're the Ghostbusters.

[00:21:52]>> Who does your taxes?

[00:21:53]>> Something like this because it means so much to so many people. It must come back to you in different ways from the fans. I imagine you both have had some interesting conversations or been approached by people.

[00:22:04]>> Well, I have a beverage alcohol business. I sell the vodka and the skull, the crystal hat vodka in the skull. Just as Britney would go to sign uh CDs or uh have John Gisham signs books, uh I sign bottles and I go to liquor stores all over North America, all over the world really, and I've signed bottles. Everywhere I go, there will be an ecto will show up with between five and 25 Ghostbusters in full rig. Uh they're usually men uh between the age of 25 and 45. They bring their girlfriends or wives who are not in uniform but photograph them with me. And then you'll get some of them bringing their kids. And now you're starting to see even smaller like infant grand in the Ghostbusters jumpsuits, the little tiny littleies, baby suits, the onesies.

[00:22:53]So you have the grandkids now of uh of original Ghostbusters viewers uh out there being invested in uh in the uh you know in the story and the fantasy of it.

[00:23:06]It's both humbling and and gratifying in a way.