By Paul Rudoff on Oct. 31, 2023 at 11:20 AM , Categories: Ghostbusters 2, Real Ghostbusters, VIP Exclusives , Tags: halloween_treat

For the past 11 years, I posted a special Spook Central "Halloween Treat" every October 31st. This year the treat will be a preview of a project that Matt Silverstone is working on at my request.

The scene of the Ghostbusters outside the slime-covered museum, attempting to get inside, and having a chat with the Mayor and Jack Hardemeyer (yes, they were both originally there) is one of the most-heavily edited portions of the final cut of the movie. Here is how the scene was written in the final shooting script

EXT.  MUSEUM - NIGHT (ECLIPSE)(LATER)

ECTO-2 pulls to the curb across the street from the museum.  Hundreds of
spectators are already there gawking at the building as the Ghostbusters
jump out and gape at the sight that greets them.

EXT.  MUSEUM THEIR POV - BUILDING

The building is now totally covered in a shell of psycho-reactive slime.
CITY WORKMEN and FIREMEN are trying to cut their way in with blowtorches,
jackhammers, power tools and the "jaws of life," but they can't even make
a dent.

GHOSTBUSTERS

They size up the situation as they don their proton packs.

                                STANTZ
                It looks like a giant Jello mold.

                                VENKMAN
                I hate Jello.

They stride manfully across the street and approach the main entrance to
the museum.

                                STANTZ
                        (to the Fire Captain)
                Okay, give it a rest, Captain.  We'll take
                it from here.

                                FIRE CAPTAIN
                        (skeptical)
                Be my guest.  We been cutting here for three
                hours.  What the hell's going on?  You know
                the Titanic arrived this morning?

                                VENKMAN
                Well, better late than never.

The workmen and firemen put down their tools and fall back as the
Ghostbusters draw their particle throwers.

                                SPENGLER
                        (monitoring valences)
                Full neutronas, maser assist.

They adjust their settings and prepare to fire.

                                STANTZ
                Throw 'em!

They trigger their throwers and spray the front doors of the building
with bolts of proton energy, but it has no effect on the hardened slime.

                                VENKMAN
                        (to the firemen)
                Okay, who knows "Cumbaya?"

A few of the firemen and workmen tentatively raise their hands.  Venkman
grabs them and lines them up at the entrance of the museum.

                                VENKMAN
                All right.  Nice and sweet --
                        (starts singing)
                Cumbaya, milord, cumbaya --

Stantz, Spengler, Winston and the firemen sing along, reluctantly holding
hands and swaying to the music.

                                ALL
                        (singing)
                Cumbaya, milord, cumbaya, Cumbaya, milord,
                cumbaya, Oh, Lord, cumbaya.

Stantz inspects the wall of slime with his infra-goggles and finds that
they have only managed to open a hole the size of a dime.

                                STANTZ
                Forget it.  The Vienna Boys Choir couldn't
                get through this stuff.

                                VENKMAN
                Good effort.  Now what?  Should we say
                supportive, nurturing things to it, Ray?

                                SPENGLER
                It won't work.  There's no way we could
                generate enough positive energy to crack
                that shell.

                                STANTZ
                I can't believe things have gotten so bad
                in this city that there's no way back.
                Sure, it's crowded, it's dirty, it's noisy.
                And there are too many people who'd just as
                soon step on your face as look at you.  But
                there've got to be a few sparks of sweet
                humanity left in this burned-out burg.  We
                just have to mobilize it.

                                SPENGLER
                We need something that everyone can get
                behind, a symbol --

His eyes fall on ECTO-2's New York State license plate which features a
line drawing of the Statue of Liberty.

                                STANTZ
                        (he sees it, too)
                Something that appeals to the best in each
                and every one of us --

                                SPENGLER
                Something good --

                                VENKMAN
                And pure --

                                WINSTON
                And decent.

EXT.  THE STREET - NIGHT (SAME TIME)

There is a commotion among the crowd as the Mayor's limousine arrives
with a police escort.  Jack Hardemeyer steps out followed by the Mayor
himself and they cross to the museum entrance.

Hardemeyer, his ASSISTANT and several police BODYGUARDS confront the
Ghostbusters.

                                HARDEMEYER
                Look, I've had it with you.  Get your stuff
                together, get back in that clown car and get
                out of here.  This is a city matter and
                everything's under control.

                                VENKMAN
                Oh, you think so?  Well, I've got news for
                you.  You've got Dracula's brother-in-law
                in there and he's got my girlfriend and her
                kid.  Around about midnight tonight, when
                you're partying uptown, this guy's going to
                come to life and start doing amateur head
                transplants.  And that's just round one.

                                MAYOR
                Are you telling me there're people trapped
                in there?

                                HARDEMEYER
                        (to his assistant)
                This is dynamite.  Call A.P., U.P.I., and
                C.N.N. and get them down here right away.
                When the police bring this kid out I want
                them to hand it right to the mayor and I
                want it all on camera.

                                STANTZ
                Mr. Mayor, if we don't do something by
                midnight, you're going to go down in history
                as the man who let New York get sucked down
                into the tenth level of hell.

The Mayor stops to consider the situation.

                                MAYOR
                        (to the Fire Captain)
                Can you get into that museum?

                                FIRE CAPTAIN
                If I had a nuclear warhead, maybe.

The Mayor turns to Venkman.

                                MAYOR
                You know why all these things are happening?

                                VENKMAN
                We tried to tell you last night, but Mr.
                Hard-On over here packed us off to the loony
                bin.

Hardemeyer flips out.

                                HARDEMEYER
                This is preposterous!  You can't seriously
                believe all this mumbo-jumbo!  It's the
                Twentieth Century, for crying out loud!
                        (viciously, to Venkman)
                Look, mister, I don't know what this stuff
                is or how you got it all over the museum,
                but you better get it off and I mean right
                now!

He pounds the wall of slime with his fist, and they all watch in
amazement as his fist goes through the wall and he is sucked bodily
through the slime curtain.  Only his shoes can be seen, embedded in the
slime.

                                MAYOR
                        (to Venkman)
                Okay, just tell me what you need.

                                                                CUT TO:

EXT.  LIBERTY ISLAND (NEW YORK HARBOR) - NIGHT

With the city skyline in the b.g., the Ghostbusters prepare their
equipment.  Each of them dons a makeshift backpack consisting of tanks,
hoses, nozzles and an abundance of gauges, valves and regulators.
Venkman looks up at the Statue of Liberty looming above them.

                                VENKMAN
                Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

                                WINSTON
                Wonder what?

                                VENKMAN
                If she's naked under that toga.  She's
                French, you know.

For comparison, here is how the scene plays out in the final film.

As you can see, a considerable amount of content was removed from that scene. Hell, even Oprah Winfrey herself commented on the "Kumbaya" portion of the scene, which Harold had to sheepishly tell her was deleted from the theatrical cut.

When a few Ghostbusters II deleted scenes were released on Blu-ray back in 2014, some of the exorcised (and very poorly edited) "outside the museum" footage was included. In addition to that, portions of the scene was also included as B-roll in the Electronic Press Kit, and the original "Titanic" line appears in a TV Spot. Adding it all up, we have 99% of the footage needed to reconstruct the scene. It was always a plan of mine to do that, but like most of my plans, I either don't have the skills, the time, or the equipment to go forth with the plan. And so, the idea sat on the back burner for the past nine years.

Last month, Matt Silverstone released his "kitchen sink" reconstruction of the first Ghostbusters film, in which he skillfully combined the theatrical cut, the first/preview cut, the deleted scenes, and the alternate takes into one monster of a movie. Once I saw what he did, I knew that he was the right person to do a reconstruction of the "outside the museum" scene.

I told Matt of the idea that I've been stewing since 2014, and within a few weeks, he had a rough cut reconstruction done. The six-and-a-half-minute video below is that rough cut, which I am premiering here with his permission. It is available in DVD-resolution with a tasteful Spook Central watermark for all to enjoy. Spook Central VIPs can download the original 1920x1080 unmarked video file.

If it's not obvious, this is NOT THE FINAL VERSION. Matt will, eventually, finesse it a little more, adding in some music and fixing some things. When the final project is done at a later date, Matt will let me know and I'll let all of you know. That said, even in a rough form, this is a damn good job, and a VAST improvement over the hack editing job Sony did with the deleted scenes. (Seriously, Sony, all you had to do was follow the script I have here on Spook Central. I hope you re-edit the scenes to match what Matt did when you release everything again next year for the 40th Anniversary 4K + Blu-ray + DVD + UMD + Laserdisc + CED 20-disc release.)

After Matt released his Ghostbusters reconstruction, many fans were wondering if he would do the same for the sequel. That will, likely, never happen. Given how much of the film we still don't have the deleted footage for, this is probably the only scene we can actually do an almost 100% complete reconstruction of. That said, I would like to see reconstructions of other deleted scenes, such as adding the movie's rearview mirror Slimer shot (used in the end credits) to the Louis/Slimer deleted scene that it originally came from, splitting the Peter/Dana Courtroom scene into two (there's an extra alternate line at the start on the Blu-ray), and deleting a little bit of the "white filler" from the Liberty Crown scene. Essentially, I want to do the "fixes" that Sony *should* have done - had they cared, you know :-)

SPOOK CENTRAL VIP BONUS FEATURE: The Real Ghostbusters: Joke and Riddle Coloring Book, provided by Logan Wood.

Well, that's it for the 2023 Halloween Treat. If time stops slipping away from me, I can finally do a seven-year-overdue computer upgrade, and other stuff stops getting in the way, I hope to finally get some projects done by this time next year that have been sitting on my hard drive waiting to be worked on - including a month-long series of articles for next October about a Horror television show starring actors from the entire Ghostbusters franchise that I've been wanting to write for the past several years. So, many apologies to all of you dear Spookies, and especially to the Spook Central VIPs, whom I owe a lot of stuff.

For the complete list of Spook Central's Halloween Treat posts from years past, click here. Thanks to Miss Kate for the "Halloween Treat" title banner that appears at the top of this post.

Spook Central Halloween Treat - Ghostbusters II Outside Museum Scene Reconstruction + VIP Bonus!

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