Originating a Movie from Outside the Normal Route
an extract from Robert Cettl's book Film Tales: Movie Trivia in the Age of DVD (on sale now in print and soon in e-book)
In the early 1980s, a librarian at the small Lone Star School in Fresno County, USA – a regular American high school – wrote a brief but detailed letter “on behalf of students and faculty” to the famous Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola, who had made both The Godfather movies and Apocalypse Now! and was publicly trying his hand at starting a studio of his own. Although such an approach towards a potential new movie was unheard of, the effort was made nonetheless to interest the director in a work that was of interest to the high school population. In the letter, the librarian stated that “I feel our students are representative of the youth of America… (e)veryone who has read (this book), regardless of ethnic or economic background, has enthusiastically endorsed this (potential) project” and urged the director to adapt the particular book she referenced into a major feature film. The book was a classic of adolescent literature, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. The director then actually read the book she referenced, found it interesting and duly made the film, attracting a cast of then little known actors including Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio and Patrick Swayze.