Here's How THAT 'Ghostbusters' Scene Happened

When you see the new Ghostbusters reboot, you'll want to talk about, well, pretty much everything, from Kate McKinnon's scene-stealing performance to Chris Hemsworth's hilarious delivery to, of course, all the scary, slime-spewing ghosts that give the movie its title. But you'll also be most definitely talking about the Times Square scene in Ghostbusters , a sequence bigger and crazier than practically any other in the movie. The scene I'm referring to is (spoilers ahead!) the climatic battle towards the movie's end, and it pits the ghostbusters against an army full of ghosts from every time period in history. It's epic and intense, and so it makes total sense that the way Ghostbusters filmed the Times Square scene was equally impressive.

When Bustle visited the Ghostbusters set in fall 2015, the Times Square filming was underway, except, well, it wasn't actually in Times Square. Instead, the scene was shot in an old Navy hangar outside of Boston, surrounded by green screen. The "ghosts," meanwhile, consisted of either men on stilts to represent the massive ghosts or normal-sized extras who dressed in costume from practically every era of American history, with people portraying ghost hippies, pilgrims, police officers, and more. Light strips were attached to their limbs and torsos to create the light used for the special effects added in later, and the whole scene, even before CGI, was truly scary.

Especially considering how intense the lead actors were while filming the scene. All four women gave it their all, doing as many takes as needed in order to get the action-packed scene perfectly right. It was an attitude they kept all throughout the movie's filming, star Melissa McCarthy revealed. "I think there’s a much harder edge to this one as far as how those fight scenes come and how we go up against the ghosts," the actor told Bustle.

The attitude clearly paid off; during the Times Square scene and the rest of the movie, Ghostbusters's lead actors look tough-as-nails and ready to take on whatever challenge comes their way, ghost or human.

Images: Columbia