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My Profile Holiday Gift Guide Gift ideas & reviews for this holiday season Start Browsing You are here: Home > News > Entertainment > Article Home Business & Finance News U.S. Politics International Technology Entertainment Film Music People Television Arts Industry Sports Lifestyle Oddly Enough Environment Health Science Special Coverage Video Pictures The Great Debate Blogs Weather Reader Feedback Do More With Reuters RSS Widgets Mobile Podcasts Newsletters You Witness News Make Reuters My Homepage Partner Services CareerBuilder Affiliate Network Professional Products Support (Customer Zone) Reuters Media Financial Products About Thomson Reuters "Benjamin Button" took decades to reach big screen Fri Dec 19, 2008 6:31am EST Email | Print | Share | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+] By Alex Ben Block LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - It's a pity that the best parts of life come at the beginning, the worst parts at the end. That notion of Mark Twain's -- as related to F. Scott Fitzgerald by his editor, Maxwell Perkins -- was the genesis of Fitzgerald's 1922 short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," and, in turn, the genesis of the acclaimed film that finally opens on Christmas Day after decades in development. When Fitzgerald conceived his fantastical tale of a man who ages backward, it was a trifle, nothing that could compare to works like "The Great Gatsby" or "Tender is the Night." But the story generated interest almost immediately. Fitzgerald was working as a screenwriter when "Button" was initially developed as a movie, but he never got to adapt it. That was left to his contemporary William Faulkner, who began a script while a contract writer at Warner Bros. in 1943. But Warners never obtained the rights, and when Faulkner asked the studio to acquire them, studio chief Jack Warner killed the project. It would be four decades before "Button" came to life again thanks to Ray Stark, a former agent and studio executive who was one of Hollywood's most successful producers. Stark brought "Button" to Ron Howard, recalls his longtime collaborator Marykay Powell, believing that the director of "Splash" might be right for the project. Howard agreed, and discussed such actors as John Travolta, Johnny Depp and Martin Short for the lead. He even did tests using Digital Domain for effects. But the projected budget was so high nobody wanted to make it. "There was also the question of how many actors would be needed to play the (title) role," recalls Powell. "That was the key thing that kept it locked in development hell." Howard left the project, but Stark kept going and convinced then-executive Josh Donen at Universal to finance a screenplay. Writer Robin Swicord ("Little Women") was hired to adapt. "I decided to make it a story that would encompass a whole American life," she notes. "It would concentrate more or less on what it feels like to be the outsider. I also came up with the love story that's still at the core." After some to-and-fro over rights, in February 1990 Swicord turned in her first draft. Over the following decade, she would do many more drafts. The script eventually landed at Amblin Entertainment, where Steven Spielberg expressed interest, as did his then-executives Kathleen Kennedy and her husband Frank Marshall. "Spielberg began to develop it," Swicord recalls, noting that the filmmaker considered Tom Cruise as the lead and even held a table reading at his home. But when Cruise dropped out and Spielberg went off to do "Hook" and "Jurassic Park" -- sparking a furious memo from Stark, demanding to know if Spielberg was going to do "that dinosaur picture" instead -- the project landed with Kennedy and Marshall, who never let go. The pair took "Button" to Paramount when they made their first producing deal in 1992. "(Kennedy) had a real passion," says Powell. "She kept it alive even when Ray couldn't do it any more." Stark died in 2004, but Kennedy stayed with the movie. Along the way, other directors came and went like some of the characters in the picture itself -- from Agnieszka Holland ("Europa Europa") to Phil Alden Robinson ("Field of Dreams") to Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich"). Continued... View article on single page Share: Del.icio.us Digg Mixx My Web Facebook LinkedIn Next Article: Metallica on fire at L.A. show Also on Reuters Sketches behind da Vinci painting may be Leonardo's Slideshow Slideshow: The shoe incident continues... Full Coverage: Reuters 2008 Year In Review Video Talk of the Town: SAG nominations Play Video More Video... Editor's Choice Slideshow A selection of our best photos from the past 24 hours. 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