Ghostbusters (also known as Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) is a 2016 American supernatural comedy film directed by Paul Feig, who co-wrote it with Katie Dippold. Starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon and Chris Hemsworth, it is a reboot of the Ghostbusters franchise, as well as serving as its third installment. The story focuses on a quartet of eccentric women who start a ghost-catching business after a paranormal encounter.
A third Ghostbusters film had been in various stages of development following the release of Ghostbusters II in 1989. Sony Pictures rebooted the series following the death of the original cast member Harold Ramis in 2014 and because another cast member, Bill Murray, refused to commit to a sequel. Some of the original cast and their family members make cameos in new roles and Ramis is commemorated in the film's closing credits. The announcement of the female-led cast in 2015 drew a polarized response from the public.
Ghostbusters premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on July 9, 2016, and was released in the United States on July 15, by Sony Pictures Releasing through its Columbia Pictures label. The film grossed $229 million worldwide against a $144 million production budget, making it a box-office bomb with losses for the studio of over $70 million. Sony abandoned plans for a sequel, opting instead to continue the original film canon with Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021).
Plot
Particle physicists and estranged friends Abby Yates and Erin Gilbert co-authored Ghosts from Our Past, a book detailing their paranormal investigations since high school. Erin later disavowed the work, while Abby continues her research at the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science in Manhattan, with engineering physicist Jillian "Holtz" Holtzmann as her partner. Now a professor at Columbia University and in line for tenure, Erin, discovering that Abby republished their book, convinces her to cease its publication if she helps Abby and Holtzmann investigate a haunting at the Aldridge Mansion. They encounter the malevolent ghost of the family’s eldest daughter before she escapes, restoring Erin's belief in the supernatural and friendship with Abby. Erin loses her bid for tenure at Columbia after their vlog becomes viral. Erin offers to join Abby and Holtzmann as the latter are dismissed from Higgins Institute. After stealing equipment, they establish temporary headquarters above a disused Chinese restaurant. They verbosely name themselves "Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination", build trappings and hire jock Kevin Beckman as a receptionist.
MTA staffer Patty Tolan encounters a ghost in a subway terminal built under a former prison and contacts the team. They find the ghost and test Holtzmann's prototype proton packs on the entity, but fail to capture it. They advertise their services with a "no ghosts allowed" logo that Holtzmann had based on a graffiti artist's defacement and the name pundits have labeled them "Ghostbusters". Patty joins the team, providing city expertise, PPE and a repurposed hearse from her uncle dubbed "Ecto-1".
Mad scientist and occultist Rowan North has triggered supernatural events by attracting ghosts across Manhattan with self-developed ionizers modeled after the Ghostbusters' technology, allowing him to experiment and create a dimensional vortex powered by turned PSI energy. When Rowan plants another device at a music festival, the Ghostbusters are called and capture a demonic ghost there, becoming city sensations but antagonizing him. When debunker Doctor Martin Heiss challenges the quartet, Erin releases the ghost as evidence; it throws him out of a window and escapes.
The group is brought before Mayor Bradley and his deputy, Jennifer Lynch, who reveal that they and the DHS are aware of the city's supernatural activities. While privately acknowledging the team's work, they publicly denounce them as fraudsters. The Ghostbusters realizes Rowan is planting his devices along ley lines, with their alignments intersecting at the Mercado Hotel in Times Square, a site of violent occurrences where Rowan's vortex will breach the netherworld, potentially triggering an apocalypse. When they confront him in the building's basement, Abby warns him of his impending apprehension by the police, but unwilling to turn himself in, Rowan electrocutes himself with his main machine. After deactivating it, Holtzmann finds an annotated copy of Ghosts from Our Past that explains the similarity between their technologies. Erin later discovers that Rowan planned his suicide to become a ghost himself.
Rowan returns as a deity-like ghost and attacks the Ghostbusters at their headquarters by possessing Abby, but Patty thwarts him. He then possesses Kevin, escapes to the hotel, opens the portal and releases galvanized ghosts. Rowan subdues the authorities, but the Ghostbusters fight through his army to reach the portal. After leaving Kevin's body, Rowan takes on a kaiju-sized form based on the ghost in the Ghostbusters' logo and becomes rampant. The team uses the Ecto-1's nuclear reactor to incite a nuclear explosion inside the vortex; it reverses the portal, forcing Rowan and the ghosts back in and saving the city. Rowan attempts to take Abby with him, but Erin leaps into the portal and rescues her.
Despite the city's fascination with the supernatural and its lauding of the Ghostbusters as heroes, the mayor continues to denounce them publicly while covertly funding their operations. With added resources, the Ghostbusters move to a disused firehouse, where they build more equipment, including an ecto-containment system. While investigating EVP, Patty hears the word "Zuul".
Cast
Melissa McCarthy as Doctor Abigail L. "Abby" Yates Kristen Wiig as Doctor Erin Gilbert Leslie Jones as Patricia "Patty" Tolan Kate McKinnon as Doctor Jillian "Holtz" Holtzmann Chris Hemsworth as Kevin Beckman Neil Casey as Rowan North Andy Garcia as Mayor Marth Bradley Cecily Strong as Jennifer Lynch Michael K. Williams as Agent Cody Hawkins Matt Walsh as Agent Henry Rorke Charles Dance as Doctor Harold Filmore Ed Begley Jr. as Ed Mulgrave Jr.
Original Ghostbusters cast members appear in the film:
Bill Murray as paranormal debunker Doctor Martin Heiss Dan Aykroyd as a taxi driver who is oddly well-versed with parapsychology, much like the Ghostbusters. Aykroyd additionally contributed as an executive producer. Ernie Hudson as Patty's uncle, Bill Jenkins, who works as a funeral director Sigourney Weaver as Holtzmann's mentor, Doctor Rebecca Gorin Annie Potts as the Mercado Hotel's receptionist, Vanessa
Co-producer Ivan Reitman, director of the first two films, has a cameo appearance as a passerby, while original cast member Harold Ramis' son Daniel cameos as a music festival attendant. Ramis' likeness is used on a bust outside Gilbert's office.
Karan Soni, Bess Rous, Eugene Cordero and Milana Vayntrub, who co-starred with Casey on director Paul Feig's television series Other Space (2015), portray deliveryman Bennie, the ghost of Gertrude Aldridge, a bass guitarist and a woman who encounters some ghosts of rats, respectively. Brian Baumgartner, Justin Kirk and Elizabeth Perkins have cameo appearances in the extended cut as Mercado hotel guest Frank, city official Phil Hudson and university professor Phyllis Adler, respectively.
Additionally appearing as ghosts are Dave Allen as the electrocuted ghost, which is additionally dubbed "Sparky", Steve Bannos as a flasher ghost, Adam Ray as the vocal effects of Slimer, who additionally portrays the lead singer of a band, and Robin Shelby as the vocal effects of a female version of the character. Saturday Night Live writer and producer Steve Higgins portrays Dean Thomas Shanks of the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science, while his son John plays a bystander who interrupts an interview with Mayor Bradley. Michael McDonald portrays Jonathan, Zach Woods portrays the Aldridge Mansion's tour guide Garett, Nate Corddry portrays Leif, Toby Huss portrays Officer Stevenson, Katie Dippold plays a rental agent, Sam Richardson portrays a police officer and Jessica Chaffin and Jamie Denbo play waitresses. Ozzy Osbourne, Al Roker, Pat Kiernan, Greg Kelly, Rosanna Scotto and Chris Gethard portray themselves.
Production Development A third Ghostbusters film had been in various stages of development following the release of Ghostbusters II in 1989. Bill Murray, who played Ghostbuster Peter Venkman in the original films, was reluctant to participate. He felt Ghostbusters II was lackluster and was critical of the new scripts he had read. Murray later clarified that his reluctance was due in part to his relationship with Columbia Pictures and Sony, rather than any of his co-stars from the first two films. Dan Aykroyd, who co-starred in and co-wrote the original films, said the studio was aware that "without Murray there may be nothing there" for a sequel, and was considering a way to introduce a new generation of Ghostbusters.
One script, Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent, written by Aykroyd in 1999, had Venkman leaving the Ghostbusters to spend time with Sigourney Weaver's character Dana Barrett; the remaining Ghostbusters, including a new younger member, fought souls evicted from a hellish version of Manhattan known as Manhelltan. The Hellbent script was revised as Ghostbusters in Hell, with plans to replace Murray with Ben Stiller. The story had the Ghostbusters finding a portal to an alternate dimension where "all the worst things about modern urban life" are "magnified"; traffic is stuck in perpetual gridlock, and nobody speaks the same language. Another story idea had Venkman transformed into a ghost.
While the third film remained in development, Terminal Reality developed Ghostbusters: The Video Game and released it in 2009. Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, cowriters of the original films, used the game to explore the Ghostbusters history. The four original actors, including Murray, voiced their characters, along with other actors from the original films. Aykroyd considered the game "essentially the third movie". The game sold over a million units, prompting Columbia Pictures to move forward with the Ghostbusters franchise. Ramis said the new film would feature the original Ghostbusters but introduce new characters in a script written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, co-writers of his 2009 comedy Year One. The film was to be filmed in 2010 and released in 2011.
Around March 2010, while the new script was being developed, Vulture reported Columbia wanted to target a younger audience and that original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman was under pressure to step down in place of a younger director. Reitman, along with Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis, had long-standing contracts in place with Columbia that effectively allowed any of them to veto the development of a Ghostbusters film. Murray told GQ that he felt the script written by Eisenberg and Stupnitsky was poor and "that dream just vaporized", but said that Columbia was pressuring him to make it. Aykroyd defended the script, saying it offered Murray "the comic role of a lifetime". In January 2012, Aykroyd revealed that the film was in "suspended animation" as Murray was still uncooperative. Aykroyd refused to recast the role as he would not make a film that "exploits the franchise". By July, the Eisenberg and Stupnitsky script had been discarded and new writers were working on a script.