"Ghostbusters is a supernatural comedy multi-media franchise created in 1984. Its inception was for the movie Ghostbusters, released on June 8, 1984 by Columbia Pictures. It centered around a group of eccentric New York City parapsychologists who investigate and capture ghosts for a living. For the movie this franchise licensed action figures, novelizations, and other original materials to be produced around the movies' theme. After this initial success they released original stories in other fields such as a comic book, a video game, a television series, and a theme park attraction. With the 2009 release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game the characters within the Ghostbusters universe set up their own fictional version of a Ghostbusters franchise to open Ghostbusters locations in other cities, which in real life was earlier seen in two independent films not officially approved by Columbia Pictures."
Source: Wikipedia, "Ghostbusters (franchise)", available under the CC-BY-SA License.