In 1978, fresh off the monumental success of Star Wars, George Lucas held a story meeting with Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan about what his next project would be: a little movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark. The story meeting was held for 5 straight days, 9 hours a day. It was tape-recorded. It was transcribed. And it is now available online for your reading pleasure.
This is quite an exciting relic. It’s a fascinating read, a real thrill to observe how the story mutated and changed as the meeting went on. This is a great resource for any writer wanting to know more about the craft of a screenplay. What strikes me as funny in this transcript is George’s constant mentioning of money and budgets as new ideas are proposed, only to have Spielberg seemingly wave his hand and claim it can be done cheaply.
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Comments (1)
OMG, thanks for this. This is awesome! I always wondered how the story came about. All I ever heard was that Spielberg and Lucas hatched the basic idea on a beach in Hawaii while they were vacationing. This adds a whole new layer to how Raiders got its start.