This page contains excerpts from and tidbits about this draft of the “Ghostbusters” script as detailed in the book “Making Ghostbusters” by Don Shay.
Gozer was described as a Robert Young-type character.
Venkman’s appearance before a university funding committee was ultimately scratched in favor of the ESP testing sequence. The opening segment with the screaming librarian cut directly to her apparent point of view — in actuality a ceremonial demon mask being used by Venkman as a visual aid.
It’s a horrible face, half-animal, half-human, with very long fangs and bulging eyes.
Fall back to reveal DR. PETER VENKMAN standing at the end of a long conference table. He is holding the hideous demon mask that we saw in the beginning of the scene.
As he speaks, he sets out two more demon masks, an audio cassette player, a slide carousel and a disorderly sheaf of notes. Venkman is a great salesman, extremely charming when he wants to be, but his charm is wasted on this audience.
MORE SLIDES
The graphics depict Venkman’s speech.
Venkman takes Dana — an interdimensional alien masquerading as a beautiful woman in the first draft, and a beautiful woman possessed by an interdimensional alien in the second — to a fashionable New York restaurant. Her unfamiliarity with the finer points of human etiquette becomes apparent when, upon arrival, she observes several ladies removing their wraps and proceeds to follow their example by taking off her blouse. Later Louis Tully — then a visiting conventioneer, also possessed — enters the same restaurant.
The Maitre d’ looks down and writes in his book. The conversation with this lunatic has ended.
VINZ
He blows his top. He grips the podium with both hands, opens his mouth and lets out a roar that sounds like it came right from the depths of Hell. Steam and vapor pour from his mouth, blowing the Maitre d’s shirt and jacket right off his back, and covering him in gelatinous bits of mucous and tissue.
THE MAITRE D’
Alternate endings included scenes within the towering glass and chrome headquarters of Ghostbusters International — now a high-rolling multinational corporation “recognized everywhere as the first line of defense against interdimensional trespassers.”
The sign over the revolving doors reads:
GHOSTBUSTERS INTERNATIONAL
THE GARAGE ENTRANCE
One Ectomobile is arriving as another speeds out on a call. A limousine pulls up to the curb and Winston gets out in a very tasteful pinstripe suit carrying a briefcase.
THE DOORMAN
He tips his hat as Winston passes by and enters the building.
INT. A LAS VEGAS WEDDING CHAPPEL
Spengler and Janine are getting married in a very tacky nuptial parlor. Louis Tully is the witness. Spengler looks preoccupied, Janine looks very happy. She kisses Spengler and Louis throws some rice on them.
EXT. FORT DETMERRING
The old historical sign has been augmented with a commercial sign that reads
Stantz enters the gateyard with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine and heads for the Captain’s bedchamber where he had his delightful encounter.
EXT. DANA’ S APARTMENT BUILDING
It has been substantially repaired, but work is still going on.
INT. DANA’ S APARTMENT
Venkman is over by the windows doing some very eccentric aerobic dancing to the tempo of the Ghostbusters theme. Dana is on the couch laughing delightedly at him, wearing a long shirt of his and nothing else.
We start to pan off Venkman as the theme fades out and an eerie note is left hanging in the air. The camera pans ominously to the kitchen door and then into the kitchen and across the countertop, finally coming to rest with a menacing tone on an open carton of eggs.
One of the eggs shakes a little bit and the shell on top begins to crack as if some desperate creature was trying to break out. Then the top of the shell pops off and a baby chick sticks its head out and looks around at an unbelievable new world.
