Ivan Reitman Tells the Story of the Original Ghostbusters

Ivan Reitman, who directed the original Ghostbusters movie, recently wrote a piece for the Hollywood Reporter about the behind-the-scenes stories of the original film. Here is an excerpt:

Dan Aykroyd wrote a 70- or 80-page treatment called Ghostbusters, a two-hander for John Belushi and himself. It was about two or three years before I ever got involved, but it never got made because, unfortunately, John passed away. It sat on a shelf somewhere, and Aykroyd may have spoken to other actors, but I'm not aware of it. There are some rumors that he had a conversation with Eddie Murphy about it, but we never really discussed that, so I don't know.

He finally had a conversation with Bill Murray just after I did Meatballs and Stripes with Bill. Bill thought it was a good idea, and Aykroyd called me and said, "Once you read this, tell me what you think." And I read it.

It took place in the future, mostly in outer space. There were competing groups of ghostbusters; it seemed to be a common profession. And there were all sorts of extraordinary apparitions and monsters. It was a remarkably complicated sci-fi movie that would be hard to do today, never mind back in the pre-CGI era.

I thought Danny had created a genius idea, it just wasn't set right. So I invited him to breakfast at Art's Delicatessen in the [San Fernando] Valley. I knew him: When I'd just started working in Toronto, I did some television [game show] on a budget of $500 a week — no exaggeration — and Aykroyd was the studio announcer.

I said, "Look, I love this idea that there are people whose job is to catch ghosts and act like firemen. But it should have a contemporary setting, a big city that we know, like New York. There's something [better] about seeing apparitions in a context that we understand, like in our living rooms or on our city streets, rather than in a void in outer space in the future sometime."

He said, "That's cool."

Read the full piece at The Hollywood Reporter.