So I saw a couple of posts on here from a few years back about people’s takes on Ghostbusters 3. I had some ideas for what I’d do as I’m an aspiring TV writer… okay, wannabe writer… okay, I wrote 1 professional TV special… Anyways, I thought I’d share my idea, in hopes of hearing what other people would do if they were in charge of this next movie. I’ve got a detailed treatment of an opening scene, and a vague outline of the rest of the movie. Here goes:
We open on a classic Manhattan brownstone, late evening. A pair of moving trucks takes off as a typical upper class New York couple, mid 40’s, vigorously bickers inside. They wade through the wasteland of boxes while their teenaged kids sit in front of the spot where the TV will be, faces buried in laptops. As this happens the camera moves upwards and tilts down, sinisterly watching the whole scene. Something is already in the house.
Finally, the wife wins this particular argument – the husband’s high school football trophies will live in the basement. As she hefts the box and heads downstairs, something is definitely not right. Lights flicker, she can see her breath, and she’s definitely not alone. Unnerved, she calls upstairs to say that she’s coming back. She throws open the closet door but is terrified to find… a ghost! She shrieks, drops her box and then… stops. A look of annoyed frustration covers her face. The now-puny spook whizzes past her as she bellows:
“Harold, I thought you were gonna call the goddamn Ghostbusters!”
“I did call them, Joanne! They said they’d be here between 10am and 9:30!”
Cut to: Outside, a vaguely familiar vehicle pulls up to the curb. But this isn’t the Ectomobile we all know and love. Picture the lame van of a cable company technician, white with red trim, and obnoxiously huge “No Ghost” logos on either side. On the roof are two ladders and a set of unimpressive tiny blue headlights. The doors open and two “Paranormal Service Representatives” lazily spring into action. These are the guys who would have chosen VCR Repair, if VCRs still existed. Their uniforms are crisp red and white, with a few too many logos and “Who ya gonna call?” emblazoned on the back. They open the back doors to reveal their equipment: it all looks sleek and mass-produced, like it was designed by Microsoft but not very well taken care of. They don their much-more compact Proton Packs, which are small enough to give them the appearance of teenage girls at the mall.
Later on inside one of the “Ghostbusters” argues with the couple about their “Ectoplasmic Liability Insurance Policy”, while his partner scans the tiny beast and exclaims, “Whoa, this thing is almost a Class 2!” (setting off another round of insurance haggling). As he corners the specter, he jumps – but instead of pulling a Proton Thrower, a dinky wand extends from his wrist. A focused beam of light shoots form the wand, completely entrapping the ghost, allowing him to move it across the room and deposit it in his partner’s backpack. As they leave the wife calls out “You’ll be hearing from our insurance adjustor”. One of the “Ghostbusters” turns, but instead of arguing he blithely asks to use the can.
From here we meet a young doctor (eager, nerdy, just out of Grad School) who is interviewing to join the Ghostbusters R&D Dept – his dream since he was a kid. As he arrives at “Ghostbusters Inc.” he visits the firehouse/ museum/ gift shop, before heading to the corporate headquarters across the street. While searching the directory for the R&D floor, he meets a female Ghostbuster (mid-30’s, wry, funny, seen-it-all) who tries to downplay his expectations. Suddenly a frantic Ray Stantz blows past them, on his way to a Board of Directors meeting.
We follow Ray to the meeting, full of suits and executives, which has started without him. Winston is teleconferencing in, on the road setting up a new franchise in Regina, Saskatchewan. Egon is live via hologram, completely invested in research in the labs downstairs. Finally Venkman is live on a teleconference TV screen, sitting on a beach drinking mojitos. The meeting establishes that Ghostbusters is the #1 ghost-elimination franchise in America (though there are competitors). Business is booming through a combination of lucrative government contracts, and that fact that ghosts have gotten steadily less powerful over the past decade – hence the unimpressive display in the first scene. As the ghosts weakened so has the technology, not to mention the standards of the company. A Ghostbuster is now about as respected as an Orkin Man. We can see in Stantz’s eyes – this isn’t how it used to be.
This is carried through in the new kid’s interview. In spite of his childhood idolization of the Ghostbusters, he is now hugely overqualified for the job. There’s not much R&D to be done (save what Spengler does himself behind closed doors). The HR lady turns him away, suggesting that NASA might be a better fit. He leaves dejected, talking to the female Ghostbuster from earlier as he leaves.
Then shit starts to get real. Something big happens (think the explosion of energy in the Gozer exhibit in the video game). We are introduced to our big bad (admittedly, I’m not sure what this would be). Now the ghosts in New York are getting stronger again. Ghostbusters are finding they’re no match for the spooks they’re trying to catch. Spengler and Ray are convinced this has something to do with the recent Psychokinetic Event, but they can’t convince the board to overhaul the entire company’s equipment (it turns out they’ve cried wolf before about things like this). So they put their own team together: The female Ghostbuster, who is one of the only competent people on their staff; the young doctor (who she recommends); and the two idiots from the first scene. As the movie goes on the original team comes back together to mentor the new team. They shut down the gift shop and use it as their home base, outfitting the newbies with their old equipment (the only stuff strong enough to catch these newly re-empowered ghosts), while Egon and Ray continue to modify and upgrade the gadgets. Finally the new Ghostbusters team ends up saving the city (with the old team playing, hopefully, as active a role as possible).
So yeah, that’s pretty much how I’d approach this. Bear in mind, I don’t think this is the only way to go. I’m also certain that if the movie sees the light of day, I will likely be WAY off in how it turns out. I’ve already heard that they want a “the Ghostbusters have been out of business for years, and now come back to set up a new team" story. Personally, I don’t think this movie should start again with the old team down and out - I’d love to see what happens after they’ve become phenomenally successful.
I just hope that they focus on making the movie actually funny. All of the action in the first movie always takes a back seat to the very dry and smart comedy (in the first movie you really only see them busting ghosts, in uniform, in the Sedgwick scene and at versus Gozer. Everything else happens off-screen).
I think they made the right move by bringing the two guys from “The Office” in to write it – I honestly don’t think Ramis and Aykroyd would be up to this these days. However, I did see “Year One”, written by these same two guys, and it was pretty awful. It seemed they assumed the actors would improvise great jokes based on a pretty weak script. Though many of the best jokes in the original Ghostbusters were improvised, the script itself is actually very tight, with most of the humour on the page. I think a big difference was that Ramis, Murray, and Aykroyd had a history doing comedy and improvising together, while everyone in “Year One” came from different backgrounds.
Anyways, I’ve yammered on long enough. This is my take on the movie. Tell me what you think, or what you’d do.
