It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, three eccentric parapsychologists who start a ghost-catching business in New York City.

Following Belushi's death in 1982, and with Aykroyd's concept deemed financially impractical, Ramis was hired to help rewrite the script to set it in New York City and make it more realistic.

It was the first comedy film to employ expensive special effects, and Columbia Pictures, concerned about its relatively high $25–30 million budget, had little faith in its box office potential.

In jail, Ray and Egon reveal that Ivo Shandor, leader of a Gozer-worshipping cult in the early 20th century, designed Dana's building to function as an antenna to attract and concentrate spiritual energy to summon Gozer and bring about the apocalypse.

In addition to the main cast, Ghostbusters features David Margulies as Lenny Clotch, Mayor of New York, Michael Ensign as the Sedgewick Hotel manager, and Slavitza Jovan as Gozer (voiced by Paddi Edwards).

It also features astrologist Ruth Hale Oliver as the Library Ghost,[3] Alice Drummond as the Librarian,[4] Jennifer Runyon and Steven Tash as Peter's psychological test subjects,[5][6] Timothy Carhart as a violinist,[6] and Reginald VelJohnson as a corrections officer.

[8] Reitman was aware of the film's outline while Belushi was still a prospective cast member; this version took place in the future with many groups of intergalactic ghostbusters, and felt it "would have cost something like $200 million to make".

[18][19] Ramis was inspired by the cover of a journal on abstract architecture for Egon's appearance, featuring a man wearing a three-piece tweed suit and wire-rim glasses, his hair standing straight up.

[15] Some guerrilla filmmaking took place, capturing spontaneous scenes at iconic locations around the city, including one shot at Rockefeller Center where the actors were chased off by a real security guard.

[8][9] According to Edlund, lawyers used much of the setup time finalizing the contract, leaving only ten months remaining to build the effects studio, shoot the scenes, and composite the images.

[59] Following Reitman's tweaks to the design, on-screen models of the "proton packs" were made from a fiberglass shell with an aluminum backplate bolted to a United States Army backpack frame.

[63] Early concepts featured a black car with purple and white strobe lights giving it a supernatural glow, but this idea was scrapped after cinematographer László Kovács noted that dark paint would not film well at night.

[16] Similarly, the scene of Weaver rotating in the air was performed on set using a body-cast and mechanical arm concealed in the curtains, a trick Reitman learned working with magician Doug Henning.

Murray and Aykroyd's agent Michael Ovitz recalled an executive telling him, "Don't worry: we all make mistakes", while Roberto Goizueta, chairman of Columbia's parent, The Coca-Cola Company, said: "Gee, we're going to lose our shirts".

[1][71] A separate theatrical trailer contained a toll-free telephone number with a message by Murray and Aykroyd waiting for the 1,000 callers per hour it received over a six-week period.

[86][k] 1984 saw the release of several films that would later be considered iconic of the era, including: Gremlins, The Karate Kid, The Terminator, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Romancing the Stone, and The NeverEnding Story.

[97] Writing for Newsday, Joseph Gelmis described the Ghostbusters as an adolescent fantasy, comparing their firehouse base to the Batcave with a fireman's pole and an Ectomobile on the ground floor.

[98] Deseret News' Christopher Hicks praised Reitman's improved directing skills, and the crew for avoiding the vulgarity found in their previous films, Caddyshack and Stripes.

[102] Despite "bathroom humor and tacky sight gags", Peter Travers described Ghostbusters favorably as "irresistible nonsense", comparing it to the supernatural horror film The Exorcist, but with the comedy duo Abbott and Costello starring.

[107] Siskel enjoyed the characters interacting with each other, but was critical of Hudson's late addition to the plot and his lack of development, believing it made "him appear as only a token box office lure".

In a 1999 interview for the DVD release, Reitman admitted he was not involved in the LaserDisc versions and had been embarrassed by the visual changes that "pumped up the light level so much you saw all the matte lines", highlighting flaws in the special effects.

They featured remastered 4K resolution video quality, deleted scenes, alternate takes, fan interviews, and commentaries by crew members and actors including Aykroyd, Ramis, Reitman, and Medjuck.

[8] In the years since its release, Ghostbusters merchandise has included: soundtrack albums, action figures, books, Halloween costumes, various Lego and Playmobil sets including the Ectomobile and Firehouse,[144][145] board games,[146][147] slot machines,[148] pinball machines,[149] bobbleheads, statues, prop replicas, neon signs, ice cube trays, Minimates, coin banks,[140] Funko Pop figures,[150] footwear,[151] lunch boxes, and breakfast cereals.

[49] There have also been crossover products including comic books and toys that combine the Ghostbusters with existing properties like Men in Black,[152] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,[153][144] Transformers,[154] and World Wrestling Entertainment.

[176] Author Zoila Clark noted that concept art of an unused Chinatown ghost bore similarities to a stereotypical Chinese immigrant including long, braided hair and a triangular agricultural hat.

[177] Critic Vincent Canby said a film's profitability was dependent on addressing children who "can identify with a 40-year-old-man with a mid-life crisis and 40-year-old-men in midlife crises who long to fight pirates with cardboard cutlasses".

Once Ghostbusters' popularity was clear, the studio aggressively cultivated its profile, translating it into merchandising and other media such as television, extending its profitable lifetime long after the film had left theaters.

[p] Its basic premise of a particular genre mixed with comedy, and a team combating an otherworldly threat has been replicated with varying degrees of success in films like Men in Black (1997), Evolution (2001), The Watch (2012), R.I.P.D.

The site's consensus reads: "An infectiously fun blend of special effects and comedy, with Bill Murray's hilarious deadpan performance leading a cast of great comic turns".

[217] In 2009, National Review ranked Ghostbusters number 10 on its list of the 25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years, noting the "regulation-happy" Environmental Protection Agency is portrayed as the villain and it is the private sector that saves the day.