New Book Adapts 'Ghostbusters' as if Shakespeare Wrote It

Plenty of Shakespeare plays have been adapted into modern-day movies, but writer Jordan Monsell took the opposite approach: As Nerdist reports, he rewrote the Ghostbusters script using iambic pentameter and Renaissance prose, transforming the 1984 comedy into a dramatic work fit for production at the Globe Theatre.

Published last month, Ministers of Grace: The Unauthorized Shakespearean Parody of Ghostbusters retells the tale of the quirky parapsychologists and their Manhattan-based ghost-catching business in a "genuine, scholarly, and hilarious" way, according to Dan Aykroyd, who co-wrote the original film and provided a blurb for Monsell’s adaptation. Plus, as Homer Simpson once pointed out, Ghostbusters naturally lends itself to Shakespearean parody, as some of the playwright's most memorable works, like Hamlet, feature ghosts.

Ministers of Grace is available for purchase online, and you can read an excerpt from the opening scene here, which begins with Dr. Peter Venkman (played in the original film by Bill Murray) as a college professor hard at work at England’s Cambridge University.

[h/t Nerdist]