Raiders of the movie rejects
QUESTION I understand that ET, The Extra-Terrestrial, was originally rejected by most major film studios. What other successful movies were originally turned down? BoB GALE’S first draft of Back To The Future was finished in February 1981. It was promptly rejected by every major film studio, most famously Disney, because the idea ‘that a mother falling in love with her son was not appropriate for a family film under the Disney banner’.
It was only after director Robert Zemeckis scored a hit with Romancing The Stone that Universal agreed to distribute the film. Finally released in 1985, it raked in almost $400 million at the box office.
John Hughes’s Home Alone (1990) was jeopardised by budget disputes. The studio, Warner Bros, put Home Alone ‘in turnaround,’ meaning the screenplay rights could be acquired by another studio or financier. 20th Century Fox snapped it up and expanded the budget from $14million to $17 million. It went on to take $476.7 million at the box office.
George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977) was passed on by United Artists and Universal over budgetary concerns. Again, 20th Century Fox was the beneficiary, raking in $775.4million from the original movie.
The George Lucas / Steven Spielberg collaboaration Raiders of The Lost Ark was also turned down by most studios over cost. It earned $389.9million for Paramount.
Despite the success of Reservoir Dogs, several studios rejected Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, an executive at Columbia describing the script as: ‘The worst thing ever written. It makes no sense. Someone’s dead and then they’re alive. It’s too long, violent and unfilmable.’
Harvey Weinstein at Miramax eventually funded the film and it later won the Palme d’or at Cannes. The script earned an Academy Award, it revived the career of John Travolta and has earned $213.9 million.
Gordon Marsh, Leicester.
QUESTION Many people don’t know, thanks to changes in the registration rules, they aren’t on the list of voters for the EU referendum. What changes are these? Who can vote in a referendum? THE electoral register was established in 1832. The original system required a ‘head of household’ to submit an application on behalf of all those resident at an address — which was subject to fraud.
In June 2014, the Cabinet office replaced this system with Individual Electoral Registration (IER), to improve the accuracy of the register, whereby every eligible person must make their own application to vote. The Government launched an online application process at gov.uk/register-to-vote
Applicants need to give their name, address, date of birth, nationality and National Insurance number. Those unsure of their NI number are required to provide proof of identity and proof of address. The final date for EU Referendum registration is June 7.
you can vote in this referendum if you are registered to vote in the UK, are 18 or over on June 23, 2016, and are:
A BRITISH or Irish citizen living in the UK, or Commonwealth citizen living in the UK who has leave to remain in the UK or who does not require leave to remain here.
A BRITISH citizen living overseas who has been registered to vote in the UK in the past 15 years.
AN IRISH citizen living overseas who was born in Northern Ireland and who has been registered to vote in Northern Ireland in the past 15 years.
you will need to re-register if you have moved house. Dr J. Cordon, London W4.
QUESTION I’ve been told there were at least eight American Presidents before George Washington. Is there any truth in this? FRoM 1774 to 1781, the highest authority of the American rebel forces was the Continental Congress of the United Colonies. This consisted of 56 delegates from 13 North American British colonies, founded to debate the colonies’ relationship with Great Britain.
The Congress’s first meeting occurred on September 5, 1774, in Philadelphia. In 1776, it ratified the Declaration of Independence. The chairman of the Continental Congress was called the ‘President’. His powers were akin to those of a parliamentary speaker and he was there to ‘preside’ over meetings — the origin of the word ‘president’. A different delegate was elected president each time the Congress met, so their terms were often a matter of months.
The first President of the Continental Congress was Peyton Randolph (1721-75), and six other men also held this post between 1774 and 1781.
In 1775, Congress appointed a commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army. This was a separate and much more powerful position than the President and was given to George Washington (1731-99), who served in this capacity for eight-and-a-half years (1775-1783).
By 1781, the Continental Congress felt secure enough to cement its powers with more clearly defined articles of confederation, giving the government a defined, constitutional political structure.
The rebel states remained largely independent, but gave up some extra powers to Congress. The President remained a weak figure, tasked mainly with ‘presiding’ over meetings.
Article IX declared that the Congress would ‘appoint one of their members to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years’ and assigned no other official duties to the office.
Samuel Huntington (1731-96) was the last President of the Continental Congress and the first President of the ‘Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled’. It is sometimes claimed that he was the first true President.
Ten men served in this capacity. John Hanson (1721-83), the third President of Congress, was the first to serve a full term in the role and others have claimed that he was the first true President.
In practice, these Presidents performed some minor ceremonial duties and often signed documents on behalf of the Congress as a whole. At that time, the posts of Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Secretary of War were far more important.
The Articles of Confederation were abolished in 1789 and a new constitution introduced that created a strong executive presidency. Washington assumed office as the first full-fledged ‘President of the United States’, a title that had been used only informally until then.
Adam Gaines, Market Harborough, Leics.