Ghostbusters II

Ghostbusters II is a 1989 science fiction comedy film and is the sequel to Ghostbusters. Produced and directed by Ivan Reitman, Ghostbusters II follows the further adventures of a group of parapsychologists and their organization which combats paranormal activities (“ghostbusting”). The sequel was originally to be called Ghostbusters II: River Of Slime.

The sequel had what was, at the time, the biggest three-day opening weekend gross in history ($29,472,894, which is equivalent to $50,864,510 in 2009), a record that was broken one week later by Batman ($40,505,884). Despite the record-breaking opening, the film has received mixed reviews from both critics and viewers.

Trivia:

In the scene when Egon looks up information about Vigo in the database, Vigo’s full name is listed as Vigo Von Homburg Deutschendorf. The actor who plays Vigo is Wilhelm von Homburg and the twins who play Oscar are William T. Deutschendorf and Henry J. Deutschendorf II. The twins are the nephews of singer John Denver whose real name was ‘Henry J. Deutschendorf I.

Several pieces of material from the trailers did not appear in the film: – Egon uses a PKE meter to read a piece of floating crystal. – When someone says the Titanic just arrived, Venkman replies “Better late than never.” In the film, this is said by Cheech Marin.

 

Dialogue including “There’s always room for Jello” was re-recorded for the finished film.

 

Cameo: [Chloe Webb] guest on “World of the Psychic”.

 

The kid who tells Ray that, according to his dad, the Ghostbusters are “full of crap” is played by Jason Reitman, the son of director Ivan Reitman. Reitman’s daughter plays the girl with the puppy in Egon’s lab.

 

Originally, the producers planned on having the crashed Hindenburg appear as a ghostly blimp. They dumped this in favor of the apparitions coming off the Titanic.

 

The scene involving a woman’s mink coat coming to life was originally written & storyboarded to be in Ghost Busters (1984).

 

When Peter arrives at Ray’s Occult book-store, pretending to be a strange customer looking for a particular book, the gag was originally intended to be that Peter had previously made a prank phone call to Ray asking for the book, and Ray realizing it was Peter who made the call when he arrives at the store repeating the act. The prank call was not used in the final edit of the film, resulting in it seeming that Peter is just fooling around as he enters the shop.

 

A scene of Egon and Ray experimenting on the bowl of slime, with them wearing head devices with multiple wires connecting to the bowl (which would have gone before the scene with the ‘dancing toaster’), was filmed but not used in the final edit, but a shot from the scene was a commonly used publicity still for the film.

 

The shot of the Ecto-1 on the verge of breaking down at the start of the film is fitting in that while filming the bridge scene that’s seen in the montage, the car finally did break down.

 

A scene featuring Ray driving Ecto-1A recklessly at speed, as a result of being possessed while examining Vigo’s painting, was filmed but not used in the final edit of the movie. However, some shots of the sequence (Ray running a red light; Peter, sitting in the back, pulling a surprised face) were used in the montage as the Ghostbusters go back into business. (This continued a trend of unused scenes being used in a montage. In the first film, a scene of Ray and Winston investigating a haunted fort, where Ray encounters a beautiful ghost, was filmed and not used, but instead used as a ‘dream’ in that movie’s montage sequence.)

 

200 visual effects shots were used in the entire film.

 

In the German dub of the movie Dana’s child Oscar is renamed to ‘Donald’.

 

The original VHS (and laserdisc) release of this movie (and The Karate Kid, Part III (1989)) was in letterbox, causing complaints to video stores prompting them to call RCA/Columbia to find out if there was a problem in the printing. To make matters worse, it was not letterboxed in the film’s original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, but rather letterboxed AND panned-and-scanned into a 1.66:1 frame. So viewers who liked ‘full frame’ movies had to put up with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and those who want films in their OAR had to deal with a picture that was cropped on the sides and panned-and-scanned in some shots. Neither type of viewer was satisfied with the original home video release. The DVD release in 1999 was the first time that the film was presented in it’s original 2.35:1 aspect ratio on home video.

 

The joystick the team uses is an NES Advantage joystick with most of the body removed.

 

The phone number on the side of Ecto-1 is JL5-2020. (555-2020)

 

The cameo appearance of Slimer the green ghost of Ghost Busters (1984) was prompted by the fact that in the years in between the two films, the cartoon series “The Real Ghost Busters” (1986) introduced the idea that Slimer was living at the firehouse as the Ghostbusters’ pet. Because the original film and the cartoon series were so popular with children, they put Slimer in the film.

 

During the montage sequence after the courthouse scene, when the Ghostbusters sign is being put up, the sign-maker’s phone number, (516) 374-2340, is visible. This was and still is the phone number for Five Town Neon Service Inc., also known as “Johnny’s Signs”.

 

In the courtroom scene, the prosecuting lawyer is carried out of the room upside-down by her leg by one of the ghosts. In the trailer, you see the prosecuting lawyer floating out of the room upside-down as the ghost SFX have not yet been added.

 

The pneumatic subway line that Ray finds when they lower him below the street actually exists under part of Manhattan. The line was built prior to any other subways in the area and was actually built without any City approval. It operated using compressed air and pushed Victorian New Yorkers a number of blocks in “elegant comfort”. When the City of New York found out about the subway line, they shut it down and the line was buried, including two beautifully appointed stations with extensive tile work and even full-size chandeliers above the tracks! Several decades later, when digging for the modern subway system, workers punched into the then unknown subway tunnel and found the station and the subway car completely intact and in remarkably good condition. It’s still there today.

 

Bill Murray told Entertainment Weekly he was very disappointed with the way the film turned out. He commented “it was a whole lot of slime, and not much of us.”

 

This film is the final theatrical appearance for actress Janet Margolin, (prosecution lawyer) who died three years later from ovarian cancer.

 

In Peter’s apartment you can see the newspaper front pages from the first Ghost Busters (1984) movie, including the “USA Today” front page. Each one is framed on his wall. They are most visible when Dana (Sigourney Weaver) is still wrapped in a towel after getting out of the shower and Peter is telling her about finding slime residue in her apartment.

 

Dr. Venkman teases Dr. Spengler about his lab assistant and Dr. Spengler responds “I think she’s more interested in my epididymis”. The Epididymis are the small tubes that connect the vas deferens to the testes.

 

The Vigo character was based on Vlad III The Impaler and Grigory Rasputin.

 

The term “proton pack”, was never officially used on screen until the Ghostbusters are in the subway tunnel and Egon says, “Before we go any further, I think we should get our proton packs.”

 

The Ghostbusters TV Commercial, in which Louis and Janine are in bed when a ghost attacks is a rehash of scene from the first movie that was filmed but not used. Originally, before the Ghostbusters go on their first call at the Sedgwick Hotel, there was a scene with a honeymooning couple in the hotel who encounter Slimer in their bedroom and call the manager, who in turn calls the Ghostbusters.

 

After the release of this film, Louis Tully, who has become the Ghostbusters’ accountant, was added into “The Real Ghost Busters” (1986) cartoon series. Also, there was an episode in which the “mood slime” was used.

 

Filed under: Science Fiction

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