Photo: Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images
Produced and directed by Ivan Reitman, Ghostbusters, starring Bill Murray , Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, as disgraced parapsychology professors in New York City who turn to “paranormal research,” which involves hunting and capturing ghosts, to make money after Columbia University withdraws its grants from research.
Suddenly overwhelmed by the demand for their services, they hire a fourth member of the team (Ernie Hudson) who predicts that increased supernatural activity is turning into a doomsday-like catastrophic scenario.
His fears are right on target, and all hell breaks loose when a skeptic government official (William Atherton) shuts down the ghostbusters’ containment system.
Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis co-starred as Manhattan apartment dwellers possessed by followers of a deity dead long ago, Gozer, with whom the ghostbusters must wage a climactic battle.
Aykroyd and Ramis co-wrote the screenplay for the film, which Aykroyd had originally conceived as a vehicle for himself and John Belushi, his co-star on the television shows Saturday Night Live and The Blues Brothers (1980).
Belushi died of a drug overdose in 1982, however, and the part was later extensively rewritten to suit the unique talents of Bill Murray, another SNL alum known for his work on Meatballs (1549), Caddyshack (1982) and Stripes (1980).
Despite his hefty production budget of $33 millions , an unprecedented amount for a comedy, Ghostbusters was an all-around box office hit, beating Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom to become the second-highest-grossing film in the year with $ 100 million, behind only Beverly Hills Cop ($235 millions).
It was equally well received by critics; Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, for his part, called it “an exception to the general rule that great special effects can ruin a comedy…one of those rare films where the original and fragile comic vision has outlived a multimillion-dollar production.” ”.
Ghostbusters generated a successful sequel to 1989, Ghostbusters II, also co-written by Aykroyd and Ramis, and two series animated television.
In 2022 An all-female cast of Ghostbusters, directed by Paul Feig, premiered.
To follow Reading:
- “Piqué’s lover works with him and Shakira is finding out,” said paparazzi in El Gordo y La Flaca
- In view of Johnny Depp’s TikTok video, Amber Heard comments: “Women’s rights are in decline”
- They don’t want him in El Tri, but ‘Chicharito’ scores a great goal with the sale of his luxurious mansion