The more people dig into the making of Ghostbusters the more obvious it becomes that this could’ve been a disaster. If you wanted to take the time you could look at the original screenplay for this and then read a similar high-concept disaster, like The Adventures of Pluto Nash, to see all the miracles that fell into place for Ghostbusters. Pluto Nash was an okay script that got everything wrong after, while Ghostbusters seemed to constantly avoid disaster through creativity and hard work.
The original script was a buddy comedy with Aykroyd as the third-wheel. It was to star John Belushi and Eddie Murphy, who had to drop out because of his commitment to Beverly Hills Cop. Murphy wouldn’t make this a bad film, just a very different one, and when Bill Murray entered the role had to be heavily rewritten, with the remaining Murphy bits either being redistributed or going into a new character that would be played by Ernie Hudson.
While the special effects team headed by Richard Edlund (Star Wars) worked on sequences that would take months to come together, Reitman encouraged the cast to improvise. This lead to several scenes being cut and many last-minute changes. This same approach is what ultimately hurt the 2016 remake, when they had to cut a nonsensical dance number that was key to the plot. Here, however, the final result is surprisingly seamless, and the movie moves quickly without a wasted moment and with a killer Ray Parker Jr. song to move us through the rough patches.
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