The story of Hollywood one film at a time. Details provided in our making of stories are direct from cast/crew or 3+ sources. For everything ATRM, click below.
After the success of The Dark Knight in 2008, Warner Bros wanted Christopher Nolan to complete the trilogy. Nolan hadn’t planned a third film and said "How many good third movies in a franchise can people name?” He said he would do it, but only if he could get a good story.
In the early 80s young screenwriter Edward Neumeier had an idea for a movie about a robot cop. He then came across student filmmaker Michael Miner who had an idea of a human cop who becomes a donor for a cyborg police officer. They felt they could combine the two ideas….
After the success of Batman Begins, Warner Bros were keen on Christopher Nolan directing a sequel. Two factors convinced Nolan to return:
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale had been long time filmmaking collaborators since meeting at USC film school. By the early 1980s they had two movies under their belt but were looking for a big hit.
In 1985 there was a joke in Hollywood that after beating Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa would have to fight an alien. Two years prior, brothers Jim and John Thomas had written something similar about a killer alien coming to earth. They called it ‘Hunter’.
SNL comic Dan Aykroyd was brought up in an environment where ghost and ghouls were part of his family - his great grandfather was a spiritual researcher and his dad wrote a book called A History of Ghosts. Aykroyd always wanted to put his experiences into a screenplay.
The first Trek movie, The Motion Picture, had released in 1979 and been a commercial success. Executive Producer and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry set to work writing a sequel almost immediately.
In 1974, screenwriter Ronald Shusett came across a short story by science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick. Published in 1966, the story was called We Can Remember It For You Wholesale and revolved around implanted memories. Shusett loved it and snapped up the rights.
When Bong Joon-ho was working on his 8thfeature film, Snowpiercer, a friend suggested he write a play. Intrigued by the thought, Bong drew inspiration from his youth, when he had served as maths tutor for the son of a wealthy family, and started coming up with ideas.
When Alejandro Jodorovsky’s ill-fated Dune project collapsed in 1976, effects supervisor Dan O’Bannon was left homeless. Living with his writing pal, Ronald Shusett, they came up with the idea for a science fiction/horror film. One which would change their lives forever.
George Lucas' first film was THX-1138 in 1971. It was a box office bomb but did pique studios' interests. UA offered Lucas a two-film deal. The first was American Graffiti. The second was what Lucas called “a space opera that’s a bit like a western, a bit like James Bond.” 
Two weeks after the release (and success) of the first Indiana Jones film - Raiders of the Lost Ark - director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas discussed a sequel. Lucas had told Spielberg he had three parts planned. As it turned out, there was no plan at all.
Even before the original trilogy became a huge success, George Lucas had always planned for the Star Wars saga to be told across multiple movies. Having negotiated a studio deal allowing him to retain sequel rights when making the first film, he planned for a total of nine.
In 1983, California Magazine published an article detailing the life of U.S. Airforce pilots at the Miramar base. Hollywood producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson thought it had the basis for a great movie, and Paramount Pictures agreed to fund the film.
In the 1970s, aspiring screenwriter David Franzoni travelled across Europe and the Middle East. Coming across many ancient arenas, he read Daniel P. Mannix’s 1958 book Those About to Die. It was about Roman Gladiators, and Franzoni thought it would make a great movie.
The first serious talk of an Avengers movie preceded the MCU. In 2005, Marvel Studios and Paramount struck a deal to make a series of Marvel Comics-based movies, one of which was The Avengers. Zak Penn (co-screenwriter of two X-men films) was hired to write the script. 
In 1982, E.T. beat Star Wars' record and Lucas returned the favour and took out the below ad for Spielberg.
Following Avengers: Age of Ultron, the MCU was moving into Phase 3 of its overarching story and two Avengers movies were planned. Joss Whedon had written-directed both Avengers films to that point but, citing exhaustion (and with rumours of on-set unrest), he stepped aside.
The story of Thanos collecting the Infinity Stones to wipe out half the universe was so epic, Marvel Studios knew they needed two films to do it. Infinity War and Endgame were filmed in one 200-day production. With Infinity War making $2bn, the pressure was on for Endgame.
In 1991, Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho was published. An 80s-set satire about a serial killer, film studios were interested almost immediately. Within on year, producer Edward Pressman had bought the rights.
In the late 1970s, amateur filmmakers George Miller and Byron Kennedy we’re looking to break into the professional industry. Working as a Doctor in a Sydney hospital at the time, Miller fleshed out an idea with Kenndy for a film set in a post-apocalyptic future.
