Ghostbusters

About

Ghostbusters is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film about a group of three parapsychologists who battle ghosts and other paranormal creatures in New York City. Upon its release, the film was regarded a critical and commercial success, spawning two sequel films, two animated TV series and nearly a dozen of officially licensed video games.

Premise

After losing their jobs as professors at Columbia, scientists interested in paranormal activity Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. Raymond Stantz and Dr. Egon Spengler begin the Ghostbusters buisness. After their sucessful trapping of a ghost in New York City's Sedgewick Hotel, their buisness picks up and they hire a fourth member, Winston Zeddemore. Their final showdown comes against Zuul, a demigod who posses Dana Barrett, a woman Dr. Venkman had been seeing. Zuul summons a monster in the form of something on the scientist's minds, a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. With the technology they developed, the scientists are able to blow up the marshmallow man and save the city.

History

Ghostbusters was released on June 8th, 1984 (shown below, left). The film stars Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman, Dan Aykroyd as Dr. Raymond Stantz, Harold Ramis as Dr. Egon Spengler and Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddmore, the titular ghost busters. The film also stars Sigourney Weaver as Dana Barrett and Annie Potts as Janine Melnitz. The sequel film, Ghostbusters II, was released on June 16th, 1989 (shown below, right).

Reception

Ghosterbusters earned a score of 7.8 on IMDB^[1] and a rating of 67 on Metacritic.^[9] The film was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Original Song. The film was also nominated for three Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Comedy/Musical, Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy (Bill Murray) and Best Original Song.

2016 Reboot

While rumors of a potential third film in the Ghostbusters series have been circulating since 2010, the plan for the project came to a halt following the death of co-writer and co-star Harold Ramis on February 24th, 2014. Despite this unexpected setback, Sony Pictures continued to seek the production of a new Ghostbusters film, and by January 2015, a completely original reboot of Ghostbusters was announced under the direction of Paul Feig, the creator of the critically acclaimed TV series Freaks and Geeks and the director of the 2011 comedy film Bridesmaids, with an all-female main cast starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon. In June 2015, the principal photography for the project began in Boston and New York City; following the conclusion of the filming on September 19th, Sony Pictures announced that the box office release of the reboot is slated for July 15th, 2016.

2020 Sequel

On January 15th, 2019, Entertainment Weekly^[15] reported that Jason Reitman, son of Ghostbusters-director Ivan Reitment, would be directing a direct-sequel to 1988's Ghostbusters II. He told the publication, "I’ve always thought of myself as the first Ghostbusters fan, when I was a 6-year-old visiting the set. I wanted to make a movie for all the other fans. This is the next chapter in the original franchise. It is not a reboot. What happened in the ‘80s happened in the ‘80s, and this is set in the present day."

That day, he tweeted,^[16] "Finally got the keys to the car. #GB20." The tweet received more than 2,700 retweets and 17,000 likes in two days (shown below, left).

The following day, Reitman tweeted^[17] a video teaser featuring the car from the film, the Ecto-1. He captioned the tweet, "Everybody can relax, I found the car. #GB20." Within 24 hours, the tweet received 5,600 retweets and 17,000 likes (shown below).

The reaction to the teaser was mixed. Some fans expressed excitement for the new film. Others expressed disappointment that the film would be set in a different universe from the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot. Twitter user @cevangelista413 tweeted,^[18] "As good a time as any to admit I really liked the GHOSTBUSTERS reboot, and am sad we’ll never get a sequel." The tweet received more than 725 retweets and 4,300 likes in two days (shown below, center). Some made jokes that satirized the backlash towards the all-female Ghostbusters reboot. Twitter user @AdriOfTheDead tweeted,^[19] "wow I can’t believe they’re rebooting the ghostbusters movie with an all-male cast, what kind of pandering shit is this." The tweet received more than 130 retweets and 610 likes in 24 hours (shown below, right). However, these tweets were made prior to casting announcements.

Online Presence

The domain of the official website for the film was registered under Ghostbusters.com on April 27th, 1998. Over a decade later, the website underwent a major makeover in the summer of 2014 to promote the 30th anniversary special re-release of the original film in remastered HD and the announcement of the upcoming reboot. The Ghostbusters franchise has also maintained official presence in the social media; On September 12th, 2011, the official Facebook fan page^[4] was created, followed by the launches of the official Twitter account^[5] on March 20th, 2014 and the official Instagram account^[11] on August 22nd that same year. As of October 2015, the Facebook fan page has garnered over 2.3 million likes, while the official Twitter and Instagram accounts have accrued 18,000 followers and 11,000 followers, respectively.

Fandom

Communities

In addition to the official presence of the franchise in the social media, numerous unofficial fan sites and communities^[13] have been launched online since the early years of the World Wide Web during the 1990s, beginning with Proton Charging in 1995, Spook Central, The Ghostbusters Homepage and Ghostbusters Headquarters in 1996, followed by The Ghostbusters Fan Forum and Mr. Stay Puft's World o' Sounds in 1997, though most websites from this decade subsequently went offline within the next few years. During the 2000s, more Ghostbusters fan communities^[13] continue to surface online, including Ghostbusters.org, Ghostbusters Incorporated, Ghostbusters Fans (GBFans), Ghostbusters News, Ghostbusters Mania and Ectocontainment. In June 2006, Ghostbusters Wiki^[12] was launched at Wikia as a comprehensive resource site for everything related to the franchise.

Fan Art

Speaking to the lasting legacy of the Ghostbusters franchise, there are thousands of fanfictions and fanart illustrations centered around the original film and its spin-off works. On DeviantART, there are more than 20,000 instances of illustrations tagged #Ghostbusters. On Tumblr, there are several blogs dedicated to the film, including FuckYeahGhostbusters^[7] and Ghostbusters fans.^[8] On Fanfiction.net^[14], there are more than 132 Ghostbusters-themed fanfictions available for reading.

Related Memes

"There is no Dana, on Zuul"

There is no Dana, only Zuul is a memorable quote from Ghostbusters. In online conversations, its snowclone form "There is no X, only Zuul" can be used to refer to someone or something that appears to have been possessed by a demon or an unpopular belief. The phrase was first uttered in Ghostbusters by Dana Barrett (played by Sigourney Weaver) who hires the team to remove a ghost from her New York City apartment. Later in the investigation, Ghostbuster Peter Venkman (played by Bill Murray) finds Barrett possessed by the spirit of the demonic demigod Zuul, at which point Barrett says the line:

Peter Venkman: Dana? It's Peter.
Dana Barrett: There is no Dana, there is only Zuul.
Peter Venkman: Ol' Zuula you nut, now c'mon. C'mon. I want to talk to Dana. Dana. Just relax, c'mon. Dana. Dana. Can I talk to Dana?
Dana Barrett: [deep demonic voice] There is no Dana, only Zuul.
Peter Venkman: What a lovely singing voice you must have.

The earliest known use of the phrase appeared on the programming language message board PerlMonks^[3] in December 2000, when the forum user amelinda referenced the quote to express his or her distaste for the commercialization of Christmas.

The Pumpkin Dance

The Pumpkin Dance is a YouTube video of a man dressed in all black wearing a Jack O'Lantern mask dancing to the theme song from the 1984 film Ghostbusters. The clip, which originally aired on the KXVO news channel in Omaha, Nebraska during a Halloween broadcast in 2006, went on to spawn several mash-up videos, remixes and photoshopped GIFs. The "Pumpkin Dance" segment first aired on Omaha, Nebraska's local news station KXVO^[1] during a 10 PM news broadcast on Halloween, October 31st, 2006. Without explanation, a man in a black unitard and a pumpkin mask was shown dancing to the Ghostbusters theme song^[2] in front of a graveyard backdrop. On November 2nd, the clip was uploaded to KXVO's official YouTube channel, where it has received more than 1.2 million views as of October 2012.

Search Interest

External References