Back To The Future Couldn't Have Happened Without This Michael Douglas Adventure Movie

"Back to the Future" is the perfect blockbuster: It has unforgettable characters, great moments of comedy, one of the most tightly-written screenplays Hollywood has ever produced, and perhaps the most suspenseful finale outside of an action or thriller movie. It also has a time-traveling DeLorean, so what's not to like? Robert Zemeckis' bright and breezy '80s classic is so widely beloved that it's hard to believe that the director had real trouble getting it green-lit in the first place. Indeed, it might have never happened at all without Michael Douglas doing his best Indiana Jones impression in "Romancing the Stone."

Zemeckis has been turning out hits for the past 40 years now, but he had a challenging start to his filmmaking career. Together with his college buddy and screenwriting partner Bob Gale, he got his break in Hollywood co-writing and directing "I Wanna Hold You Hand," which had the added bonus of Steven Spielberg being onboard as executive producer. But even his magic touch couldn't prevent the film from flopping and the box office, after which Gale and Zemeckis also penned one of Spielberg's worst-reviewed movies, "1941." The team's following endeavor, "Used Cars," fared slightly better, but it hardly set the world on fire. Overall, Gale and Zemeckis' joint career had gotten off to a very mediocre beginning, which meant their next project was a tough sell.

As the pair touted "Back to the Future" around Hollywood, studios rejected their screenplay on over 40 occasions. The general wisdom was that time-travel movies didn't perform well at the box office, while Disney, in particular, was horrified by the incestuous implications of Marty McFly's plan to hook up his mother with his geeky dad. And while Spielberg was still interested in producing the film, Gale and Zemeckis reasoned that if they made another movie with their pal and it also bombed, that might spell a premature end to their time in Tinseltown.

So, Zemeckis instead landed the gig to direct "Romancing the Stone," a film that bore a striking resemblance to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with its swashbuckling hero and feisty romance. Far from being a ripoff, however, the screenplay actually preceded Spielberg's Oscar-nominated adventure. Written in 1978 by Diane Thomas, then a Californian cocktail waitress, the script was snapped up by Colombia Pictures as a star vehicle for Michael Douglas. But the project fell through, and Douglas wouldn't swing into action until after Indy had dominated the box office.

Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a successful author of racy romantic adventure novels, but her lifestyle doesn't quite match the bodice-ripping exploits of her characters. She lives alone with her cat in her Manhattan apartment, but excitement unexpectedly comes her way when her sister Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor) is kidnapped in Colombia by Ralph and Ira (Danny DeVito and Zack Norman), two oddball criminals seeking a treasure map. Also on the trail is Colonel Zolo (Manuel Ojeda), the sinister police chief who murdered Elaine's husband shortly after he mailed the map to Joan in New York.

Joan packs her suitcase and hops on a flight to Colombia to free her sister, but she finds herself hopelessly out of her depth once she gets on the ground. Oblivious to both Ralph and Zolo on her tail, she takes the wrong bus and gets stranded deep in the mountainous interior of the country. When Zolo makes his move to seize the map, Joan is rescued by Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), an American adventurer who makes a living by smuggling rare birds. Joan offers to pay Jack to take her back to civilization and, with Zolo and his troops in hot pursuit, they make a perilous journey through the jungle to the nearest big town. But once Jack discovers the map in her handbag, can she trust him? Or will he try romancing the treasure out from under her?

After his first two more low-key directorial efforts, you can really see Robert Zemeckis finding his groove here. He's not the kind of filmmaker who feels the need to leave his fingerprints all over a movie; he's just an expert facilitator with a great knack for creating well-polished and hugely popular mainstream movies. His invisible touch serves "Romancing the Stone" well, allowing his charismatic stars to have fun with a lightweight romp that entertains rather than thrills. Turner also grounds the story with her Golden Globe-nominated performance as a dowdy novelist who gets to unleash her adventurous streak, and she has decent chemistry with Douglas, who plays Colton with gusto but appears a little self-conscious trying to emulate Indy. DeVito, meanwhile, is as good as he always when he's playing a comically shady character like Ralph, and the rest of the movie's cast contribute to the overall jaunty tone with likably broad turns. It isn't "Raiders of the Lost Ark," but then again, what is?

"Romancing the Stone" became a surprise hit, taking home over $115 million at the global box office against a $10 million budget and becoming the sixth-highest-grossing movie of 1984. It was so successful that it even received a sequel in the form of 1985's "The Jewel of the Nile," which brought Turner, Douglas, and DeVito back for a far more uneven adventure set in Africa. Zemeckis, however, didn't return to helm the follow-up, as the critical and commercial success of the first film meant that he now had credit in the bank, and several major studios were suddenly interested in making his time-travel movie. With several options available, the director decided to repay the faith Spielberg had shown and offered him first refusal (via CNN).

Spielberg's eye for a hit was arguably at its peak in the mid-'80s, and he threw the weight of his production company, Amblin Entertainment, behind "Back to the Future." It wasn't all plain-sailing for Zemeckis, though, due to the highly publicized need to replace Eric Stoltz with Michael J. Fox well into filming. Realizing that Stoltz's method-style performance didn't bring the required comic energy to the character of Marty McFly, the actor was given the chop but had to keep on working while Zemeckis negotiated with the producer of "Family Ties" to let him have Fox.

It all worked out in the end, obviously. "Back to the Future" proved to be another smash hit for Zemeckis, receiving almost universal critical acclaim and becoming the highest-grossing film of 1985 (with a box office haul of roughly $389 million versus a $19 million budget). Sadly, the 1980s was the era of the earnest prestige picture at the Academy Awards, so the movie only received three Oscar nods: Best Sound Editing, Original Screenplay, and Sound Mixing. If it was made nowadays when more genre films are scooping up the top prizes (see also: the popularity of "Everything Everywhere All at Once"), it probably would've secured nods for Best Picture and Best Director, too.

The movie's success also meant that sequels were inevitable. Indeed, "Back to the Future Part II" and "Part II" were shot back-to-back and released in 1989 and 1990, respectively, with Zemeckis at the helm and most of the principal cast returning. Both films also cleaned up at the box office and, taken together with the original, form one of the best trilogies Hollywood has ever made. For that, we can thank Diane Thomas for writing "Romancing the Stone" in the first place.