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Romance. Adventure. Bickering. Mudslides. Alligators are ready to devour you at a moment’s notice. This is all at the heart of Romancing the Stone – the movie and the production. Before it became a hit with audiences – which took some time itself – the script was developed by a sole waitress…before landing at the feet of an Oscar winner before bouncing between studios before finding itself the victim of poor press before a miraculous recovery at the box office. With additional backstories of mended feuds, career skyrocketing, and tragic deaths, it reads like something out of a book – not those trashy paperbacks but almost something even more unbelievable: the making of Romancing the Stone.

So let’s find out: Wtf Happened to this movie?!

Romancing the Stone began where so many romances do: a diner! It was while working as a waitress in Malibu, California, in the late ‘70s that...

Over the decades, the Indiana Jones franchise has helped keep the adventure genre alive while also ushering in characters in other forms of media like Lara Croft and Nathan Drake. Another thing these movies maintained was strange occurrences with the supernatural. But while knock-offs kept the trope of the legends being true, none of them did it like Indiana Jones.

From Raiders of the Lost Ark to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the supernatural has become the backbone of the series. From confirmation of a higher power to creatures from another dimension, the artifacts of Indiana Jones prove just how dangerous the universe can be. But while these revelations had the potential to be downright terrifying, Indy never fully embraced the genre of horror. However, that didn't mean that its co-creator, George Lucas, didn't constantly push to bring horror directly to Indy's front door.

Related: Indiana Jones 5...

Harrison Ford filming Raiders of The Lost ArkPhoto: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images (Getty Images)

We all know that the arrival of Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny marks Harrison Ford’s fifth and final entry in the enduring franchise, but how many of us know about previous...

On March 30, 1984, 20th Century-Fox unveiled Robert Zemeckis’ adventure film Romancing the Stone in theaters. The film, starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito, went on to gross $75 million-plus during its theatrical run. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:

One of the nicest things about Michael Douglas’ production of Romancing the Stone is that it never pretends to be more than it really is — a rip-roaring adventure yarn with plenty of action, plenty of thrills, a lot of laughs, a few surprises and a pleasantly predictable romance. What makes it several notches superior to most of the competition is that everyone involved seems to have had a particularly clear idea of what he’s doing and the determination (and skill) to do it better than just about anyone else. At its core, Romancing the Stone is just a big, dumb movie but, as Pauline Kael might say, it’s a movie-movie,...

Moviegoers have been flocking to see their favorite romantic couples on the silver screen since the early days of cinema from John Gilbert and Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and more recently Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. But none of those partnerships have endured nearly four decades. Until now.

Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner first starred together in Robert Zemeckis’ romantic 1984 comedy adventure “Romancing the Stone,” which was the eighth-highest grossing film of the year, winning the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical and Turner winning the Globe for actress in the same category. Penned by the late Diane Thomas, “Romancing” cast Turner as plain Jane romance novelist Joan Wilder, who shares her apartment with her cat. After she get a frantic call from her sister who has been kidnapped by antiquities smugglers in Columbia,...

“Romancing the Stone” looks like a fun adventure romp onscreen, but making the Michael Douglas-Kathleen Turner movie that turns 35 this week was no stroll through the jungle. There were alligators, mud and plenty of back-and-forth with the studio — not to mention a tragedy after it opened.

The romantic comedy adventure opened March 30, 1984 and ended up as the eighth-highest grossing film of the year. It won the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical, and Turner took home the Globe for best actress in a comedy or musical.

Following in the footsteps of blockbuster “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Romancing the Stone” was a real game changer career-wise for star-producer Douglas, who became an even more popular leading man; Turner, who proved she was more than a femme fatale; and Douglas’ friend Danny DeVito, who became a bankable actor and director.

Director Robert Zemeckis went on to become one of Hollywood’s major filmmakers,...

Mark Harrison Feb 12, 2019

Looking for something to watch this Valentine’s Day? Here’s why John Carpenter’s sci-fi romance Starman is worth another look…

This feature contains minor spoilers for Starman. If you haven’t seen the film, please read on with caution.

John Carpenter hasn’t made too many conventional date movies. Films like Halloween, Escape From New York, and his thematic Apocalypse trilogy don’t typically get couples in the mood for love. Nevertheless, he made a doozy of a romance in the form of 1984’s Starman, which stars an Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges and an equally great Karen Allen as an unlikely couple who take a road trip across America.

Starting with the 1977 launch of the Voyager 2 space probe, which carries a golden record full of samples of Earth culture and greetings in 57 different languages, the film is about an alien who answers mankind’s invitation to extra-terrestrial life.

Simon Brew Jan 8, 2018

When Romancing The Stone hit big, Fox wanted a sequel: quickly. And that, in turn, caused a few problems...

The recent addition of Robert Zemeckis’ Romancing The Stone to Netflix – starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner – stirred up a sizeable amount of love and nostalgia for the 1984 caper. In it, Douglas and Turner take on their own Indiana Jones-esque adventure, with crucially a couple at the heart of it that you could really root for.

But whereas Romancing The Stone tends to be very well loved, there’s a lot less affection for its rushed-out sequel, The Jewel Of The Nile. In fact, if anything, the film is best known for the song that Billy Ocean sings over the end credits, When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going (itself based on a line of dialogue that’s spouted a couple of times in the...

With its blend of adventure, love story, and comedy, "Romancing the Stone" is remembered today as one of the quintessential hits of the 1980s. Nonetheless, at the time the movie was released (30 years ago this week, on March 30, 1984), no one expected much from it. Director Robert Zemeckis was seen as a failed whiz kid, star Kathleen Turner had never carried a picture, and co-star Michael Douglas had yet to prove himself as a leading man. Of course, the film ended up propelling all three of them onto the A-list and generated an equally successful sequel, "The Jewel of the Nile."

As familiar as you are now with the story of Joan Wilder (the mousy romance novelist who blossoms during a real-life treasure hunt in Colombia) and Jack T. Colton (the unlikely guide who proves to be the romantic hero of Joan's fantasies), there's still a lot about "Romancing the Stone" you may not know,...

Feature Simon Brew 31 Jan 2014 - 07:04

There are currently four Indiana Jones movies, and some might say that's one too many. But what about the Indy movies that never were?

For a new Indiana Jones movie to go forward, it requires a degree of agreement amongst three people who don't seem to have a habit of agreeing very much. Basically, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford and George Lucas all have to say yes, else the project stalls, and a different approach is taken.

As a consequence of this, there's a trail of unmade Indiana Jones films that failed to get the necessary unanimous agreement. The ingredients of some of them would find their way into others, and some ideas would never be returned to. Here then is a whistle-stop tour of the Indiana Jones movies that never were...

Indiana Jones and the Haunted Mansion

We'll start with the one we know the least about.