Dr.D wrote: ↑December 27th, 2020, 12:20 pm It's hard to imagine Dan and Harold sitting down to write a sequel at all with how the first movie came together.
What do you mean by that?
When I started reading screenplays it really made me appreciate the art of acting a lot more than I did. Some scripts can be read as funny right off the page while others don’t. I remember feeling so disappointed in the Ghostbusters 1 script. I just didn’t find it funny. But when you put that dialogue in an actor like Bill Murray’s mouth? So much of it is attitude and delivery. With ad libbs done by pros.
Take Janosz in the final GB2 draft. His lines don’t read as funny. But when you see it in the final film? It’s hysterical. So much of that comes from direction & performance.
I LOVE John Candy. Love him. But if John Candy had been cast as Louis rather than Moranis, the first film would’ve been at least 1/3rd less funny than it is. Moranis just has this nerdy desperation to him that makes the character work.
Think of how funny the world of the psychic scene is in the film compared to how it comes off in the script. So much of what makes that scene work is the complete earnestness of the woman & Venkman’s looks directly to the camera and his general uncomfortable body language.
When Dan & Harold wrote that scene they KNEW Murray would nail it. But the woman? Who knows how over the top that scene could’ve been with a different actress.
It’s similar with the script to Dr. Strangelove. The script doesn’t really read as funny. But when you cast Peter Sellers & give the film a certain aesthetic...it’s like magic. A line like “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!” works so much better when you have Peter Sellers as some milquetoast WASPy American President.