Canadian director Ivan Reitman poses for a photo recently on the set of "Draft Day." THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Summit Entertainment, Dale Robinette

TORONTO - "Ghostbusters" is the comedy that seems like it will never die.

This summer — 30 years after the hybrid flick about four "paranormal investigators" created a new type of blockbuster — the enduring cult favourite stormed theatres again with a newly snazzy visual re-rendering, reproduced on a new Blu-ray set in stores this week.

It's fitting that the "Ghostbusters" would come to life again over the same season that theatres were ruled by "Guardians of the Galaxy," another studiously unserious laugh-a-minute sci-fi thriller.

"'Ghostbusters' almost created a whole new genre of large-scale filmmaking that is also funny," reflected the film's Canadian director Ivan Reitman recently. "It was a very organically made film. It's not just that we improvised stuff while we were shooting it.

"It was this sort of unique group of actors that I was very fortunate to gather together to make the film."

That cast included sardonic star Bill Murray, the late Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver and two titanic Canadian comedic talents in Rick Moranis and Dan Aykroyd, who co-wrote the film.

Reitman recently reflected on the milestone anniversaries — the more lightly regarded "Ghostbusters 2" also turns 25 this year — in a conversation with The Canadian Press.

CP: You're supposed to sit down for a screening of "Ghostbusters" later this afternoon. I don't know how often you revisit the film, but how does it feel when you do?

Reitman: Watching my films after a long hiatus is always a mixed kind of event. On one hand, I'm usually proud. I think, "Oh, you did good there, Ivan." "Oh, that's kind of a cool shot. That's an underappreciated moment."

And then every once in a while I'll see something and go, "Euuggh." Where I think I made a mistake or I pushed something that, looking with more experienced and more mature eyes, I think: "Wow, you were rushing this. You could have taken more time. You didn't have to go for that cheap moment — you could have just stayed and tried it in a more naturalistic way."

But that's the growth process and I just feel really lucky ... that a number of them have seemed to resonate for a surprisingly long period. I can't tell you how happy that makes me and how proud I get.

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CP: Do you understand the ongoing fixation that many people have with "Ghostbusters?"

Reitman: I think what's sort of made it hang around is that you're very happy after you see the movie, and there's very few movies that do that. I remember how I felt when I watched "The Wizard of Oz" or, even better than that, "Singin' in the Rain" — it's such a joyful experience. It's very easy to sort of do it over and over again. And we treasure those films that do that for us because there's very little in our lives that do that, that's that artificial and that far outside are usual experience.

So I don't mean to be arrogant but I think "Ghostbusters" somehow has achieved that quality. Sometimes it's by accident. I'd like to take credit for it but it's usually this wonderful, fortunate mix.

I remember Sigourney coming in to literally have a conversation about maybe playing the part. I knew her from "Alien" and "The Year of Living Dangerously." And this beautiful, statuesque, extraordinarily intelligent woman sort of got on all fours on my coffee table in my office and said: "I really should get possessed." That idea was not in the draft that we had written very quickly a couple months before. And she started howling to the moon and I thought: "Wow, that's kind of a cool idea."

From the beginning of writing the sort of screenplay with Aykroyd and Ramis in Martha's Vineyard to the point where it was released in theatres was only 13 months. It was this really happy occurrence.

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CP: You saw the excitement here around Bill Murray Day (held at the recent Toronto International Film Festival). Why do you think it is that Bill Murray is beloved to the extent that he is?

Reitman: Look, he's an extraordinarily funny man — one of the funniest in the world, and has been for 40 years. He was this funny when I first saw him on the National Lampoon show when he was a total unknown guy and bellowing on the streets and making strangers laugh. Who's this strange man?

Yes, he's eccentric, but he's eccentric in a really lovable way. And there's a sense that he's never sold out, that he's been very true to himself. And we admire that. We wish we could conduct our lives that way, in that sort of eclectic, very strict way.

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Answers have been edited and condensed.

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News from © The Canadian Press, 2014