‘Hard Way’ Credit

Regarding Kari Granville’s Sept. 2 article on our movie “The Hard Way”:

Like many films, “The Hard Way” has followed a long, serpentine course to the screen. It was originally going to be directed by Arthur Hiller, and Ted Danson was set to star. When John Badham and I came aboard, our first attempt was to team Kevin Kline and Gene Hackman, with Chicago as the location, only to eventually arrive at Michael J. Fox and James Woods and New York when all but the shouting was over.

In the case of the writers, the history was no less complicated. The original script was written by Lem Dobbs and then rewritten by Daniel Pyne. Both scripts were supervised by producer Bill Sackheim. It was the Pyne draft that got Badham, myself, Fox and Woods to commit.

Because of Dan’s obligation to his John Schlesinger picture, “Pacific Heights,” also produced by Sackheim, he was not available to do the final polish. Badham and I brought in Jeff Reno and Ron Osborne of “Moonlighting” fame, who ran the final leg of the race.

Final credit is still being arbitrated by the Writers Guild of America.

I’m sure The Times didn’t have enough column inches to explain all this.

A movie grows and changes like a Ouija board prodded by a thousand hands: It’s half talent, half voodoo--but John and I would not have been able to do the work we did without the fine foundation laid by Dobbs, Sackheim and Pyne, and we wanted to set that record straight.

ROB COHEN, Producer

Universal City