Ivan Reitman is sitting in a suite in New York`s elegant Plaza Hotel, sipping orange juice left over from breakfast, on the eve of the opening of
”Ghostbusters II,” his sequel to the biggest-grossing comedy film of all time.
”I`ve had this dream of taking a very small camera crew and two or three actors and going across country and making a quasi-experimental film,” the boyish wonder comedy director, 42, says. ”Bill Murray and I used to think about doing that some day, but it`s probably unrealistic right now.”
That dream does seem remote from all the hype, the hoopla and the studio`s great expectations for ”Ghostbusters II,” the big-budget follow-up to a monster film that made $220.8 million. It is the second major release in what will likely become a three-way race in the summer box-office sweepstakes. ”Ghostbusters II,” which opened in Chicago Friday, is going up against the currently running ”Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” and ”Batman,” which opens in Chicago this Friday.
And those are just the favorites in a field of some three dozen films opening between the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. Additionally, Columbia Pictures hasn`t had a hit in a long time and needs one, so a lot is riding on the sequel`s success. In a summer of killer competition, how will
”Ghostbusters II” play?
Dan Aykroyd fielded the question at a press conference at the Plaza, with the rest of the Ghostbusters present-Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson-as well as Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts and Reitman.
”We`re a comedy,” Aykroyd says. ”Now, I think we`re the only really hard, real comedy out there. There are laughs in `Batman,` there are laughs in `Indiana Jones,` no question. Jim Cameron`s movie `The Abyss,` we`re all gonna see that, I know I will. Everybody is gonna see everything, it`s that kind of summer. But we are the only comedy.”
It`s shaping up to be sequel summer. But aside from the obvious economic considerations, why a sequel to ”Ghostbusters”?
”There was a period about two years ago when we started talking about doing something together again,” Reitman says. ”For a short period, we looked into doing something together-but not the Ghostbusters-with new characters in some new setting. We had a thing about space cadets. The more we talked about the possibilities of continuing the original story, the more fun it seemed.”
Reitman says the hardest part in making the film was ”to find a way to make the second one fresh. I had never done a sequel before because you`re always worried with the expectations, desires and cynicism that come with doing a sequel-cynicism of others toward the project. You`re always worried that its going to come out dull in comparison. That was the greatest pressure on the film. It`s really scary. You lose the element of surprise.”
On the positive side, he says, ”There was a great comfort in working together as a group. We concentrated on the character comedy a little more. There`s the strength of having characters that you know, that are already worked out for you. That takes a long time. Obviously, the characters were really successful for us. There are these wonderful, fleshed-out characters we could work with. Beyond that, you have this extraordinary concept that Dan Aykroyd came up with, that there is in existence a group of people who function much like firemen who do this job of catching ghosts. That`s a wonderful idea that lends itself to easy continuation.”
Aykroyd enthusiastically agrees: ”There`s a lot of places you can go with these characters. Myth, mysticism, metaphysics, man, you got the limits of the universe, inner and outer, man, you can do all kinds of things. I guess I sound like Dennis Hopper. That`s what it provides. The hardware we`ve got, the characters, there`s no limit, there`s no end to it.” (Of the group, Aykroyd is the true believer in paranormal phenomena.)
In tossing around script ideas, Ramis, co-writer of the screenplay with Aykroyd, says a number were discarded. ”We played with the notion that the Ghostbusters were wildly successful, that in fact we were Ghostbusters Intl. We had an office building, corporate jets and lots of success. But that seemed inaccessible somehow and not in keeping with our humility. We felt we should be underdogs.”
In fact, when the sequel opens, the Ghostbusters, having wreaked havoc on New York by plying their trade, have been hit with a judicial restraining order banning them from the practice of ghostbusting in the city. Ray Stanz
(Aykroyd) and Winston Zeddemore (Hudson) have been forced to earn a living by entertaining in Ghostbusters costumes at children`s parties. Dr. Peter Venkman (Murray) hosts a low-budget cable show on psychic phenomena. Egon Spengler, the Spock-like scientist played by Ramis, continues his esoteric research.
When the `Busters discover a river of slime running under Manhattan, which draws energy from all the evil and hatred in New York and threatens the Big Apple`s very existence, they are forced back into business to save the city, despite whatever the police or petty bureaucrats do to stop them.
This time out, even though the humor draws more heavily on character development than special effects, the film hardly lacks in that department. The slime, all 100,000 gallons of the pink, biodegradable, vegetable-based stuff, is a character in its own right. When the Ghostbusters ride the Statue of Liberty to the rescue, the ending makes the 100-foot-high Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man look like a softie.
Reitman, who has directed such comedy hits as ”Twins,” ”Meatballs,”
and ”Stripes” as well as the original ”Ghostbusters,” says, ”The Statue of Liberty seemed to be such a perfect foil for the theme of the story. There were some pressures to do something big in the film because of the last one. But there was something compelling about increasing the size of the story, especially as you go into the last act.”
But, in general, the sequel bases its humor on human relationships. Murray is trying to win back Weaver. Since their relationship fell apart, she has married, had a child and divorced. The two are more romantic here, and Murray is less abrasive.
Asked why he seems warmer in the film, Murray says, ”I was asked to be less like myself. No, I`m just a little warmer than I used to be. It`s the result of an operation I had recently. I was neutered and I`m just easier to get along with. I don`t snap, and I don`t chase buses or cars. It was the writers` idea. We`re all calmer than we used to be, except for Dan. We`re all calmer than we used to be, especially Ivan, and Ivan is the big potato in the stew. It`s a factor of how much more relaxed we are working together.”
Columbia`s not taking any chances with ”Ghostbusters II,” which has multitudinous promotions. There will be an MTV contest with the Ectomobile as the prize. There are tie-ins with Coca-Cola, Hardee`s fast-food chain, Fuji Film and Ralston Purina. And there already is some $80 million worth of merchandise on toy shelves tied in with ”The Real Ghostbusters” cartoon TV show.
Because of these commercial pressures, did the film company lean on Reitman to produce a smash? ”If I do a good job with the film, Columbia`s economic problems are taken care of anyway. I think the way to handle it is to ignore the studio and really deal with the problems at hand, which is the movie. And really that`s all they want me to worry about and to make them a good movie.
”The pressure of doing a sequel-you know the audience is gonna feel the first one was better than the second-that was much more overwhelming than worrying about Columbia. Columbia is a large corporation owned by a larger corporation. I thought it was a relatively safe bet.”
Now that the first step has been taken toward sequels, won`t the next one be easier? Aykroyd and Murray are poles apart on this one.
”I`m `Return of the Jedi.` That was a good sequel.”
Murray is less thrilled with the idea of a ”Ghostbusters III.” ”I think many things come in threes, but I think some things come in twos:
Leopold and Loeb, Hitler and Mussolini. It`s a little early; we`re not going to say we`re going to repeat in `91. We`re going to enjoy this championship right now. Harold and Dan have something to say in this one, but we`re not going to do it if there`s not anything to say. We didn`t do it for five years because there was nothing to say,” Murray says.
Columbia is going all out for ”Ghostbusters II.” Last year, its top film, ”Punchline,” pulled in a mere $21 million. The company is banking on the `Busters and ”Karate Kid III” to pull it out of its doldrums.
Asked if the future of Columbia depends on ”Ghostbusters II,” Ramis deadpans: ”We think the future of America depends on it, not to mention our futures.”
