So…um. Anyone else Read that GB3 Hell Bent Script? Yikes.

Ghostbusters Discussion General Ghostbusters Discussion
1

Ooh man.

This largely tracks with what we heard about in the latest GB book(I’m guessing his source was of the same as Spook Centrals?)

The script is awful. Dreck. We didn’t just dodge a bullet we dodged a bomb. It’s so not Ghostbusters.

Makes you realize how much Ivan and Harold brought to this. Which is something we’ve always known but god damn. One thing is pretty funny is the descriptions for what we are seeing are INSANE. Very Aykroydesq

Like…why is a 10 year old boy in charge? What? I mean…I get it. But…what?

Some ideas are very cool. The main conceit is good. The characters are shit. They read like what an old man thinks young people are like.

It’s trying so hard to be “hip”.

Wow. I’m shocked how bad this script was. But I’m glad I spent the money to get access. I’ve always wanted to read this and now I have.

But what happened to all the other drafts? 2006? That seems quite late. Where’s the ‘99 draft reviewed on IGN? Interesting.

Well we’ve waited a long time for this. Thanks to everyone who made this happen. It was a terrible script, but at least now we know.

2

If anyone is lost, RichardLess is referring to this:

Yes, I used the same source as Greene to gain access to them. They only had the '97 treatment and the '06 script of Hellbent. So essentially the first and last version of Hellbent, so we do get to see the beginning and end of it. They didn’t have the '99 draft. We’ll just to keep waiting for Chris Stewart to post the other 200 or so pages of it.

It is on the record there are about 3 drafts so I would guess the 3rd would be '00. Hard to say why he did a revision but the notion was in '06, Aykroyd did really limited revision like adding more about Peter or giving an ethnicity to one of the new Ghostbusters. But we do have an idea of why. The history of Hellbent is a roller coaster, as Aykroyd sorta gave up in November 2000 because Sony was trying to save money and make a cheap deal during negotiation because stuff like Blair Witch came out, the failure of Evolution tanked any lingering interest from Sony then there was new interest around that time in '06 about making Hellbent into a CGI movie. Then The Video Game started taking shape and the game crew convinced Aykroyd with their pitch and they wanted it to be the third movie (but Sony still resisted that), Aykroyd got Ramis interested in helping out, all the turmoil of production and the game gets made and released, Aykroyd and Ramis are sorta renewed by that and in '08, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky were tapped for a rewrite and later Etan Cohen in 2012 titled Ghostbusters: Alive Again.

You can sorta see some funny coincidences (or maybe not) of things established in Hellbent resurfacing in Afterlife and perhaps in the upcoming movie: the guilt over a certain someone’s death, a young genius child, the afterlife, Winston being more in charge, new team(s) of Ghostbusters. Also pretty neat, we all thought Winston having a doctorate originated in The Video Game, but it actually originated in Hellbent (though in the '06 draft it’s never specified what the degree is in)

3

Interesting to see the concept design for the updated uniform revived the hand-based “wands”.

It would’ve been interesting to see how the project would’ve evolved with Harold and Ivan grounding it, but at the conception stage… It sounds pretty bad. It’s… good(?) …That this long-unreachable… If now infamous… Story is now accessible to the fandom. :slight_smile:

4

My white whale.

oh my god it’s terrible.

The salvaged good; when Ghosts do appear they seem to be of the same monstrous cloth of the scolari brothers. 10-15 ft tall ghastly apparitions. The script has 3 solid laugh lines (“Hey do you know where a guy can get a gun?”)

The wasteland of bad; everything else. Nat. Nat busting ghosts on his own. Nat driving a car. Nat. Nat. Nat. Basically all of the aykroydisms we’ve heard about over the years. The spaceship. The not slime blower snot guns. Absolutely stunned that this draft was from 2-0-0-6.

Best 10 bucks I’ve spent in a while.

5

Thank god we never saw that concept art on screen. The hand based wands were a stupid idea in 1983 and they are a dumb idea now. Why in gods name would they mess with the perfection that is the proton pack. Thank God for Stephen Dane!

The problem with Hellbent is that the idea is too big. As soon as you have the ghostbusters going to hell in the 1st act you’ve lost the mundane. It’s too high concept. Maybe if they turn it down by like 70% they’d have somewhere to go but it’s all…just…wow.

The opening is actually really cool. Going thru the graveyard and down into the grave and down into the machinery of hell. And then back up when the soul is denied entry. I liked that. But this is just so insane…

I’d love to see Harold’s pass at this.

This movie would’ve been 3 hours long. The script is 130 pages and it’s DENSE. I’ve changed my mind about having Dan involved with the new movies. Keep him away from this franchise at all costs.

Jesus. I’ve read some bad scripts in my day but one from the guy who co wrote Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, Spies like Us, Dragnet & Ghostbusters 2…how could it be this bad? It’s kinda depressing how bad it is. It’s always bothered me how Aykroyd has gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to Ghostbusters respect. And it’s sad to see how out of touch and unfunny this script is. Yes it has imagination and neat imagery. It reads more like a comic book or Extreme Ghostbusters episode than GB movie. The existing characters don’t read or sound like the characters we know, the new characters are nothing. The movie has a Jar Jar Binks with Nat…the 10 year old!

While I still think this is probably better than the 2016 movie(maybe?)…GBA was The Godfather next to this.

I almost feel like I’m being pranked lol

6

It does underscore the story told over the decades that Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis were a crucial component of the development process, grounding and refining Dan Aykroyd’s initial idea/script for the first 2 movies into the versions we saw on screen. It was a true partnership and they balanced each other out and created something great.

7

I haven’t read it, but from what I’ve seen of it, it reminds me of the canceled Zootfly game that had the test demo released a few years ago, and whew…

that was BAD.

8

I’ve heard of this hellbent script and from what I can gather, yeah we dodged a huge bomb indeed!

9

I wish I could spot a good or bad film from the script, but I can’t.

If you have a copy of the 2022 Ghostbusters Ultimate blu-rays - listen to the version of GB84 with the music removed (the rough cut I think it is?) and just doing THAT makes the film very hard to watch, feel funny or even feel like a story is being told.

10

Well it’s not always clear. Good films have been made from meh scripts. Ghostbusters 2 is a good example. The shooting script is not very good. In fact it’s a mess. But somehow Ivan Reitman worked his magic and salvaged that movie(in my opinion. Others disagree). A lot of that happened through editing and reshoots. It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination but if we had gotten the film just as written on the page? The ending alone is so odd. So “What does this have to do with anything?” that I can’t believe they even shot it.

But great scripts(famous examples being Chinatown, Back to The Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark) will usually read well and you can just see it.

But yeah it’s not always clear. But when you read dreck like that GB3 script, you just know there’s no way to polish that turd. It needs a page 1 rewrite. It needs a total redo.

11

Wait I’m confused. Spook central is run by a guy named Paul Rudoff. Do you work with him? Can you tell us a bit more on how you found these? How you learned about them? Usually places like this don’t let you copy them for the internet.

It’s a great find so thank you. I’d love to know the detective work that went on to find this.

.

12

Is this the script that supposedly landed on Bill’s desk?

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I seem to remember that there were two versions of the script. The first one was loosely based off the episode from TRG where Egon is a ghost and has 24 hours or something like that to get his soul back into his body so he can return to the real world and the second one was I believe after Venkman died because Murray refused to come into GB3 as if I remember rightly, this was around the time that Ramis/Murray weren’t talking to each other and were in a middle of a bitter feud.

14

I do work with Paul from time to time and in the background contribute to his site and vice versa he contributes to the GB Wiki. I’ve shared all my movie and video game transcripts with him over the years as well and he has them posted. I think it’s GB1, GB2, ATC, TVG (both the Realisitic and Stylized versions), Sanctum of Slime, Afterlife) and if I find drafts, I also share them with him like a Sanctum of Slime draft and these Hellbent ones.

In one of Greene’s interviews, he mentioned researching Hellbent at Yale and eventually I landed on the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University as Paul mentions in the link I had in the post you quoted. They have a collection of documents known as the Tom Davis Papers and within that were the Hellbent treatment and '06 revision. After some searching and filing a formal request, I detailed to the staff there - explained who I was, my position as an administrator at the GB Wiki, and my goal of cleaning up some articles for accuracy and they graciously provided me copies of the documents (In general, like any library’s rare collection, these Hellbent documents can only be read in their Reading Room and not borrowed). After reading their rules and discussing with Paul, deciding what we were comfortable with doing, that there was enough in the rules that it was legal for them to be shared through Spook Central and to protect ourselves threw in a credit to Yale at the end of the documents and I believe Paul restricted the document so it can’t be printed. The latter is mostly to prevent proliferation of copies printed out by people and/or being sold on ebay with fake signatures which he sorta suspects is what people are doing with the GB1 drafts he has. But also to honor Yale’s wishes and keep it so they have the print version only, that we know of.

I don’t recall this version at all. Maybe it was Coen’s Alive Again draft. I seem to remember something about either Egon or Ray’s ghost possessing some of the new GBs?

15

Something like that, aye.

16

Damn! That’s awesome.

Thank goodness for fans like you & Paul. Seriously. This is a huge find.

17

It was a luck and a fortunate set of circumstances. But I’m glad I didn’t have pay an arm and a leg on ebay

Yeah, cross a white whale off the list of GB scripts I want to find. We were surprised the Hellbent '99 draft wasn’t in there but beggars can’t be choosers! Maybe Chris Stewart will post more pages from his copy someday. I forget who else has a copy of it, maybe Tristan Jones (worked on several IDW comics). Maybe Troy Benjamin?

And thank you for the kind words. We try to contribute a little to the community of fans.

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When Tom Davis passed away, his career archive was donated to Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at his alma mater, Yale University.

James Greene Jr., author/researcher behind the “A Convenient Parallel Dimension” book, found the Hellbent material was in the Tom Davis Papers at Yale. BTW, if you haven’t read James’s book, I highly recommend it. He does a great job of setting the stage and context for the Hellbent era (and, well, every other GB era).

I can’t wait for the discussion Hellbent brings, but I’m not sure this was the best way of getting it out there. Distributing PDFs behind a pay wall without any sort of agreement worries a little me for Michael and Paul, as well as for future accessibility to Yale’s archives (and Aykroyd’s solo work).

A bit of background— a copy of the 1999 first draft leaked out of CAA in the early 00s. This is what made it to the IGN/Stax Report in 02, and later Proton Charging. The original CAA copy is still in a private collection and was actually posted here on the forums in a collection video ages ago!

Flex time, I guess. My personal photocopy of Hellbent is almost old enough to drink. It was hard to keep my trap shut, but it simply wasn’t mine to share. I kept mum out of respect for the source. And Dan. Now that it’s out there… I’ve really grown to love Hellbent. Seeing this thread made me wince several times.

The GB lore is well established: Dan wrote his far out, kitchen sink first draft scripts on both films. High concept comedy sci-fi tales with lots of techno jargon from whatever weird theoretical fringe physics stuff he was interested in at the time. They were light on character work and refined comedy. Raw streams of GB creativity, poured on page without a second thought for FX budgets or production schedules. Harold and Ivan joined Dan and brought the first drafts down to a more manageable, produceable scale.

Dan and Harold had story meetings on Hellbent. Harold was set to direct, and has a writing credit on most of the films he directed. We’re seeing that same process play out here. I’ve never been able to confirm if Ramis did a pass, but it doesn’t sound like it. Although a lot of time passed between 99-06, very little changed in the limited revision. The leaked Hellbent scripts are not shooting scripts. In the parlance of GB history nerds, Hellbent never made it to Martha’s Vineyard. This thing was never meant for public consumption, nor represented the final form. We haven’t seen anything this early in the process from either film. I personally love seeing the peek into this part of the process.

The concept art is by John “The Viking” Daveikis— Aykroyd’s friend going back to college, initial concept artist behind GB, GB2, Nothing But Trouble, Coneheads, others. As Aykroyd said in the Cleanin’ Up the Town documentary, “John designed all of my movies…”.

My Unorganized Thoughts—

-The treatment is way easier to read if you aren’t used to screenplays.

-The Firehouse and ECTO 1A appearances in the treatment gave this fanboy a HUGE grin.

-Typo alert— “Moira” is accidentally “Miriam” on page 27 of the full draft.

-I loved seeing Aykroyd’s vision for where the GB company went, in-universe. It’s incredibly cool to see.

-Taghanik was my fav new character. Do you trust an alcoholic lawyer in hell?

-Was older hot lady Desseter written for Donna Aykroyd?

-The opening to the treatment kills me. I’m not sure why Aykroyd cut those scenes down.

-It’s interesting to think what Harold’s visual direction for Ghostbusters would look like.

-Hellbent led me to research old physicists— namely Heissenberg and Feinman!

-The mundaneness isn’t there? I disagree.

-It isn’t Ghostbusters? It was never just about trapping Class 5s. The original Ghostbusters script is rooted in interdimensional travel, and Hellbent was another iteration of that idea. To me, it’s very much in the spirit of Ghostbusters, just not what we’ve seen on screen. They go to hell, confront Satan, then get stuck in a traffic jam on the way home from work. Roll credits.

-No love for the ghost trap on a telescoping pole?

19

Warning This is going to be a long post:

Well I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with you so thoroughly. Tho we are in agreement about one thing. I too am a bit uncomfortable by putting this behind a paywall. I know it’s only for a month but…that wasn’t the intent of the original donater. I mean let’s be honest here…we are dealing in some truly dubious ethics here. Personally, I’m glad I read it and had access to it. But at the same time…someone is profiting off of this. But then that person is also someone whose been a HUGE resource to Gb fans and someone whose had the work they’ve provided sold by others. So there’s a few layers to this. But I do think putting this up behind a pay wall is wrong. That is not what this was for and would go against the wishes of the donating party. But I gladly paid and consumed it. But I’ve visited the prop forums here and I’ve read over and over about how against prop people are over stealing and reselling molds other people made. I get that. It makes sense. But then profiting off of a script you don’t own? I dunno. But I see Paul’s side of it. Hosting a website isn’t free. It’s a complicated issue.At the end of the day MrmichaelT said he got permission from the library and I think that’s an important thing to have. If it were copied without their knowledge? That’s theft. Tho I still would’ve gladly read it lol

Now on to the fun stuff.

Ok. I’m going to get controversial here ladies and gentlemen. I can this is as a fan of the movie but…Ghostbusters is one of those movies where the movie is about 5X better than the script. I don’t think Ghostbusters is a very good script. It’s not bad. But I think the finished film, transcribed word for word, is an excellent script. But the shooting script…is messy. It goes on weird tangents, the pacing is all over the place, and from what we know of the making of the movie and how certain people (Sigorney Weaver, Stephen Dane, John De Cuir) contributed ideas and concepts vital to the essences of what makes Ghostbusters Ghostbusters, we can say that the movie is more than just Dan, Ivan and Harold. It was all these people in one place at one time.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it until I’m dead. We are lucky Ghostbusters works as well as it does. It’s held together by spit and duct tape and pure will. If most of the deleted scenes are included, from the Bums, to the Fort Determing, to the honeymoon couple, the movie would be lesser off. If Elmer Bernsteins original theme is used, if the Ecto 1 is painted black with purple lights, if the original design for the GB’s with helmets, swat gear and…metal rods…think of all those points of potential failure. And yes, I’m saying right here, right now, the GB’s in their original design? if any of those elements were left in the finished film.. I don’t think the movie finds the cultural staying power it has with that…aesthetic. I don’t. It’s like…does Indiana Jones work as well with Tom Selleck(the original actor cast)? No I don’t think so.

And so…Ghostbusters 1 we got lucky. The movie as it existed on paper when they went to go shoot it? It’s not the classic it would become. And plenty of movies that become classics can say that. Just look at the original Star Wars script. But I’m also not going to pretend like the script for Ghostbusters was some genius level of comedy. Because it wasn’t. A lot of the comedy we get is reworked, improv, and performance based. Some of it is in the script. But does Louis work on the page? No. Does Venkman? Not really. Gozer as a dude in a business suit was never a good idea.

And what of Ghostbusters 2? Ghostbusters 2 funniest character wasn’t even really thought up by any of the original team. Janosz is Janosz because of Peter Macnicol. Then we have all the reshoots that I won’t bore everyone with. But again we have a very messy script.

So what does all this mean? It means Ghostbusters movies were never ever great in scripted form. It took other cast members, production designers, visual effects guys and some re working to make it what we know and love.

This script throws so much at the wall and so little of it sticks that I just can’t see it working…but I’m sure if I had read Dan’s original GB draft I’d have the same opinion.

I’ll give this script a few more reads. Scripts, like movies, can take a bit. Sometimes the bad is so bad it overwhelms everything else. Nat is so bad I had trouble with everything after he appeared. It’s such a stupid, stupid, weird, “what were they thinking”? Idea that it colours the rest of the script for me.

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Cinema is a collaborative medium. Scripts are a living document. Paraphrasing Ivan, production and post-production are like the next draft of the script.

I guess we’ll agree on a few things, disagree on a few others. :love: