The short answer: it’s HOLLYWOOD.
Randal Kleiser directed a big hit movie called THE BLUE LAGOON. Columbia pictures wanted a sequel. Randal wasn’t immediately interested. So the studio made him a development deal. They gave him money to develop possible scripts to direct. The studio was hoping that eventually LAGOON 2 would come from this mix.
David Isaacs and I were making the rounds pitching movie projects. This was like 1981. We met with Randal who responded to our comedy pitch – a coming-of-age story about kids in a rundown amusement park. David grew up in Florida and knew the state was full of them. It would be a class war between the Brett Kavanaugh kids who were the wholesome “Up With People” singing group and the outcast kids who had to dress in character costumes.
We wrote the screenplay. He loved it. The studio, headed by Frank Price, passed. Why? They had no intention of greenlighting a Randal Kleiser comedy. Price wanted BLUE FUCKING LAGOON 2.
So that’s why it was never made.
Why didn’t another studio make it? Because Columbia never put it in turnaround. So we couldn’t take it elsewhere. They just ate the cost and buried it.
HOLLYWOOD.
Interestingly, a few years ago I bumped into a Columbia executive who was there at the time. I hadn’t seen her in 30 years. When she heard my name the first thing she said was STAR SPANGLED ADVENTURE. She had remembered that script. Everyone loved it except the one man who could make it.
HOLLYWOOD.
from By Ken Levine
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