Here’s the Untold Backstory of the Iconic Slimer From Ghostbusters

When Katie Dippold and I first wrote the script,

we had a scene where we wanted to show the origin of Slimer.

Since all our ghosts in the movie, most of them,

are based on humans who come back

from the dead, thus ghosts.

To me, ghosts are humans that have died.

We wanted to find some fun origin

of how Slimer became Slimer.

So we actually had it where they got called

to a restaurant that had, many years ago,

had some famous gangster had come in

and was demanding lots of food; big giant guy.

The waiter screwed up and so he ended up killing the waiter,

and then he was sent to jail and executed.

So we liked the idea that the ghost of this gangster

had come back and was sort of raiding the kitchen

in this hotel, in this restaurant.

Then when the ghostbusters come in

they haven't quite tested their equipment yet,

so they haven't got the levels right.

So they shoot it trying to capture it,

but it's too hot, the proton beams are too hot,

so it blows his legs off.

Then it turns him green and then he starts

to distort, and so he becomes Slimer,

and then he escaped out into the world.

We just liked the idea that Slimer

had some sort of disreputable past.