Background and filming

Ghost was the first film Jerry Zucker directed on his own, as well as his first dramatic film. He had previously been part of the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker directing team, known for their parody films. Zucker stated that his decision to direct Ghost was not made to distance himself from comedies or to mark a new chapter in his career, but he was merely "just looking for a good film to direct." When screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin learned that Zucker was to direct the film and wanted to make changes to his script, he was apprehensive, as he wanted Miloš Forman or Stanley Kubrick to direct and feared Zucker would turn his script into a comedy. However, Rubin changed his mind and warmed up after dining with Zucker and being impressed by how "deeply philosophical" he was.^[5]

Harrison Ford, Michael J. Fox, Paul Hogan, Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Kline, Alec Baldwin and Tom Cruise were considered for the role of Sam Wheat.^[6][7] Bruce Willis turned the role of Sam Wheat down as he did not understand the script and later called himself a "knucklehead" for declining.^[8] Similarly, Fox thought the film wouldn't work, and, in hindsight, regretted turning the role down.^[9] Michelle Pfeiffer, Molly Ringwald,^[7] Meg Ryan,^[7] Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman were considered for the role of Molly Jensen. Tina Turner, Patti LaBelle, and Oprah Winfrey were either considered or auditioned for the role of Oda Mae Brown.^{[10][11][12][13][14]} Zucker initially was not interested in casting Whoopi Goldberg as Oda Mae, and Swayze advocated for her to be cast.^[15][14]

Zucker credited arguments from radio host Dennis Prager with deciding to "lighten" Rubin's original script with a moral message.^[16]

Rubin noted that he "wanted to tell a ghost story from the ghost's perspective": "One day, I was watching a production of Hamlet, which begins with the ghost of Hamlet's father saying, ‘Revenge my death,’" he recalled. "I thought, ‘Wow, let's transpose that into the 20th century; it'd be an interesting story.’ And the idea hit me."^[17]

Filming for Ghost began shooting in July 1989. Many of the interior scenes were shot at Paramount in Los Angeles. The interior of Sam and Molly's loft is a reproduction of the home and studio of artist Michele Oka Doner, built from plans she provided because she declined to allow filming in her loft. It was reconstructed in an unused loft nearby in her Soho neighborhood^[18] and featured many of the same details as the actual loft, such as radiators around columns, open stairs and a house-shaped enclosure for the refrigerator. Filming of the apartment took place at 102 Prince Street, lower Manhattan.^[19][20] The exterior scenes were shot in New York City, particularly in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Soho, and Wall Street, for about five weeks. The film features about 100 special effects shots.^[21] Demi Moore's famous 'boy cut' in the movie was designed by Manhattan hair stylist John Sahag.^[22]

The final scene used digital video effects. Originally it was meant to show Patrick Swayze kissing Demi Moore before walking up a mylar platform toward a bluescreen with grips in the shot. VFX supervisor Richard Edlund didn't think the audience would buy it, and used Quantel’s “Harry” video-compositing system to combine the workprint with Swayze with elements that had been shot on an Oxberry animation stand and things like an endoscope of Christmas tinsel.^[23]

Music

The music for Ghost was written by veteran French composer Maurice Jarre, whose work was nominated for the 1990 Academy Award for Best Original Score (won by John Barry for Dances with Wolves).^[24] The soundtrack also featured the 1955 song "Unchained Melody", composed by Alex North with lyrics by Hy Zaret. In Ghost, the song appears both in instrumental and vocal form, the latter being the version recorded by Bobby Hatfield of The Righteous Brothers in 1965.^[25]

The soundtrack album was issued worldwide on Milan Records, but licensed to Varèse Sarabande in North America. It was reissued with two extra tracks in 1995, and later as part of Milan's Silver Screen Edition series with the extra tracks and an interview with Maurice Jarre.^[26]

Releases and sales

The film became an unexpected box-office success,^{[27][28][29][30]} grossing $505.7 million on a budget of between $22–23 million.^[31][32] It was the highest-grossing film of 1990.^[33] Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 51.46 million tickets in the US.^[34] It spent eight consecutive weeks at number one at the UK box office^[35] and became the highest-grossing film of all time in the UK surpassing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial with a gross of £23.3 million. That record would last for three years before getting surpassed by Jurassic Park in 1993.^[36][37] It also spent six consecutive weeks atop the Australian box office.^[38] It was also the highest-grossing film in Indonesia at the time with a gross of $3.6 million^[39] and the highest-grossing foreign film in the Philippines.^[40]

The film was released on video and LaserDisc in the United States on March 21, 1991, and sold a record 646,000 videos for rental, breaking the record set by Die Hard 2,^[41] and a record 66,040 LaserDiscs.^[42] It was the top video rental of 1991 in the United States,^[43] and generated a gross of $40 million for Paramount. The video went on sale in the fall and generated sales of $25 million.^[41]

Critical response

Ghost has an approval rating of 76% based on 78 professional reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.9/10. Its critical consensus reads, "Ghost offers viewers a poignant romance while blending elements of comedy, horror, and mystery, all adding up to one of the more enduringly watchable hits of its era."^[44] Metacritic (which uses a weighted average) assigned Ghost a score of 52 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[45] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.^[46]

Roger Ebert gave Ghost two-and-a-half out of four stars in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, regarding the film as "no worse an offender than most ghost movies, I suppose. It assumes that even after death we devote most of our attention to unfinished business here on Earth, and that danger to a loved one is more important to a ghost than the infinity it now inhabits." He was also critical of the film's "obligatory action climax", the "ridiculous visitation from the demons of hell", the "slow study" of the Molly character, and the "single best scene" in which Sam overtakes Oda Mae's body to caress Molly: "In strict logic, this should involve us seeing Goldberg kissing Moore, but of course the movie compromises and shows us Swayze holding her - too bad, because the logical version would actually have been more spiritual and moving."^[47]

David Ansen of Newsweek, despite finding the ending too sentimental, praised the film as "a zippy pastiche that somehow manages to seem fresh even though it's built entirely out of borrowed parts."^[48] Variety magazine called the film "an odd creation – at times nearly smothering in arty somberness, at others veering into good, wacky fun."^[49] Goldberg received considerable praise for her performance. In a review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin comments "Ms. Goldberg plays the character's amazement, irritation and great gift for back talk to the hilt. This is one of those rare occasions on which the uncategorizable Ms. Goldberg has found a film role that really suits her, and she makes the most of it."^[50] Even some writers who gave negative reviews of Ghost extended praise to Goldberg's work in the film.^[51]

Accolades

In 2002, the film ranked #96 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions.^[64]