How Dan Aykroyd’s Original ‘Ghostbusters’ Idea Became The Movie We Love [Video Essay]
By Ethan Anderton/July 15, 2016 8:30 am EST
Like any good screenplay, the high quality of the final draft of the original Ghostbusters was a result of careful planning, rewriting and simply compelling storytelling. A new video essay takes a look at how the original concept for Ghostbusters changed from the idea Dan Aykroyd had in his head to the movie we ended up seeing in 1984 and have loved ever since. Check out the Ghostbusters screenplay video essay after the jump.
Here’s “How Ghostbusters Became Ghostbusters” from Lessons from the Screenplay:
This is a creative decision that allowed for much more character based writing, which is one of the strongest aspects of the Ghostbusters screenplay, and something that helps the audience accept the surreal nature of the paranormal story. There are traces of this kind of writing in the first half of Paul Feig’s new Ghostbusters, but it’s put by the wayside for generic blockbuster action in the second half, and the film essentially loses itself.
