Dan Aykroyd’s social channels have been much more active lately, with the Ghostbusters co-creator recently giving fans a peek inside his family’s reportedly haunted Ontario farmhouse and now digging into the archives to share a rare look at the beginnings of what would become Ghostbusters.
The latest post features an early concept illustration by John Daveikis, showing Aykroyd’s original vision for the Ghostbusters’ uniforms and equipment. Sharing the artwork, Aykroyd described it as his “original conception for Ghostbusters jumpsuits and packs,” before adding one particularly relatable bit of hindsight: “Glad we lost the helmet.”
The illustration depicts Ray Stantz in a considerably more sci-fi take on the Ghostbusters look, complete with an oversized helmet and wraparound visor. While far removed from what would ultimately appear on screen, several familiar elements were already taking shape, including the military-style flight suit with name patch, an early variation of the “no ghost” logo, and the basic concept of a portable nuclear accelerator, even if its design would undergo a dramatic transformation before becoming the Proton Pack seen in the finished film.
Daveikis was an early collaborator as Aykroyd worked to get the project off the ground, providing concept illustrations that accompanied his original screenplay when he presented it to director Ivan Reitman. He would remain involved once the film entered production, receiving a consultant credit on the finished 1984 movie.
Of course, the Ghostbusters themselves weren’t the only things that looked considerably different during those earliest stages. Aykroyd’s original concept was a much larger, darker science-fiction adventure set in the future, where paranormal activity was already commonplace, and multiple teams of professional ghost exterminators operated as an established business. The story would venture across different planets and dimensional planes, with the Ghostbusters already catching spirits from essentially the opening page.
When Reitman became involved, he immediately saw the potential in Aykroyd’s core idea of treating ghost removal like a blue-collar profession, but felt the sprawling futuristic setting and scale would be far too expensive to bring to the screen. The concept was instead grounded in then-modern-day New York City, shifting the focus to how a group of university parapsychologists actually became the Ghostbusters, with Reitman also suggesting that Harold Ramis come aboard to help Aykroyd extensively rework the screenplay.
This latest archival share follows another recent glimpse into Aykroyd’s world, when he posted a photograph alongside his daughter Belle from inside his family’s “old haunted farmhouse” in Ontario. For a closer look at everything hiding in the background of that photo, click here.
