You’d be a fool to think Ghostbusters wasn’t going to succeed when it hit theaters in 1984.
Stars Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray were Saturday Night Live veterans who found big screen success in films like The Blues Brothers and Stripes, while co-stars Harold Ramis (who wrote the film with Aykroyd) and Rick Moranis were veterans of Canadian sketch show SCTV. And the concept – man-child misfits go into business as paranormal exterminators and take New York City by storm – sounded great on paper.
But Ghostbusters had even more cultural appeal than expected. The film was not only the biggest of 1984, but spun off toys, animated spin-offs, a theme-park attraction, a No. 1 hit theme song by Ray Parker Jr., a beloved fruit juice drink, and four sequels and reboots. (The latest, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, is in theaters March 22.)
What keeps people coming back to that old firehouse? The mix of scares and silliness, from Slimer to the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, is hard to beat. But for Gen Xers, Ghostbusters also represents a golden era for big screen comedy – one they’re ready to share with their own kids, making new shockwaves on 21st century pop culture.
Frozen Empire, the third sequel to the original film, sees Aykroyd, Murray and Ernie Hudson returning as the surviving original Ghostbusters alongside Afterlife stars Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard and Mackenna Grace. (Ramis died in 2014, but that didn’t stop him from appearing in additional sequels.) Before strapping on your proton packs and heading back to the theater, we’ve ranked each supernatural spectacular in the Ghostbusters franchise. If you think our picks are right or wrong, who ya gonna call? The comments section, probably.
‘Ghostbusters’ Movies Ranked Worst to Best
It’s proven quite difficult to replicate the magic of the original 1984 film.
Gallery Credit: Mike Duquette
