Romancing the Stone is a 1984 romantic comedy and adventure film directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Diane Thomas, and produced by Michael Douglas, who also stars in the film with Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. The story follows a romance novelist who must leave her New York City home to travel to Colombia and rescue her widowed sister, who has been kidnapped by criminals.

Diane Thomas wrote the screenplay in 1979. At the time, Robert Zemeckis was working on another film called Cocoon and liked Thomas’s screenplay. He offered to direct Romancing the Stone, but 20th Century Fox refused at first because Zemeckis’s earlier films, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars, had not been successful. Later, after an early screening of Romancing the Stone did not impress studio leaders, Zemeckis was no longer allowed to work on Cocoon. Alan Silvestri, who later worked with Zemeckis on other films, created the movie’s music.

Romancing the Stone was released on March 30, 1984, and received praise from critics. It earned more than $115 million worldwide. A sequel called The Jewel of the Nile was released on December 11, 1985, one year and nine months after the original film.

Plot

Joan Wilder is a successful but lonely romance novelist who lives in a New York apartment with her cat, Romeo. As Joan leaves to meet her editor and friend, Gloria Horne, her neighbor gives her an envelope containing a map sent by her recently murdered brother-in-law, Eduardo. While Joan is away, a man breaks into her apartment and kills the building's superintendent when caught. When Joan returns, she finds her apartment ransacked and receives a phone call from her sister, Elaine, Eduardo's widow. Elaine has been kidnapped by people who steal ancient items, named Ira and Ralph, and tells Joan to bring the map to the Colombian coastal city of Cartagena, where it will be used as ransom for her release.

Joan flies to Colombia but is stopped from taking a bus to Cartagena by Colonel Zolo, the man who killed Eduardo and ransacked her apartment. Instead of heading to Cartagena, the bus travels deep into the country. Ralph notices this and follows Joan. When Joan asks the bus driver where they are going, the bus crashes into a Land Rover, damaging both vehicles. As other passengers leave, Joan is threatened by Zolo but is helped by the Land Rover's owner, an American man who smuggles exotic birds named Jack T. Colton.

Joan promises to pay Jack $375 in traveler's checks to help her reach a telephone. Together, they travel through the jungle while avoiding Zolo and his military police. In a small village, they meet a drug lord named Juan, who is a fan of Joan's novels and helps them escape Zolo.

After a night of dancing in a nearby town, Jack suggests they find the treasure themselves before giving the map to someone else. When Zolo's men arrive, Jack and Joan steal a car to escape, but it is Ralph's car, and Ralph is sleeping in the back. They follow clues to find the treasure, a large emerald called El Corazón ("The Heart"). Ralph takes the emerald by force, but Zolo's forces arrive, distracting Ralph long enough for Jack to take the emerald back. After being chased into a river and over a waterfall, Jack and Joan are separated. Joan has the map, and Jack has the emerald. Jack tells Joan to go to Cartagena, promising to meet her there.

In Cartagena, Joan meets Ira, who takes the map and frees Elaine. Zolo and his men arrive with a captured Jack and injured Ralph. Zolo tortures Joan while Jack tries to throw the emerald into a crocodile pool. Zolo catches the emerald, but a crocodile bites his hand off and swallows the emerald. A fight breaks out between Zolo's soldiers and Ira's group. Joan and Elaine run for safety, chased by Zolo, while Jack tries to stop the crocodile. He lets it go to save Joan.

A wild Zolo attacks Joan, but she dodges his attacks, and he falls into a crocodile pit. When authorities arrive, Ira and his men escape, but Ralph stays behind. After a kiss, Jack jumps into the water to chase the crocodile with the emerald, leaving Joan with her sister.

Later, Joan returns to New York and writes a new novel about her adventure. Gloria is moved by the story and tells Joan she has another best-seller. When Joan returns home, she finds Jack waiting on a sailboat named the Angelina, after the heroine of her novels, wearing boots made from the crocodile's skin. Jack jokes that the crocodile had "a fatal case of indigestion" from the emerald, which he sold to buy the boat. They plan to sail around the world together.

Production

The screenplay was written five years before the movie was made by Diane Thomas, a waitress from Malibu. This was her only screenplay that became a film. She died in a car accident one and a half years after the movie was released. Jack Brodsky and Michael Douglas bought the rights to her screenplay as their first project for their studio, Bigstick Productions, under a contract with Columbia Pictures in 1979. However, Douglas was unable to cast the film before his agreement with Columbia ended in 1983. After the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), 20th Century Fox agreed to buy the film rights from Columbia. Robert Zemeckis was chosen as the director because of his connection to the director of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg.

Douglas originally planned to only produce the film, as he had recently been in several movies that did not do well at the box office. While the film was still with Columbia, Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood were considered for the role of Jack T. Colton but refused. Other actors considered for the role included Sylvester Stallone, Paul Newman, and Christopher Reeve. Douglas eventually cast himself in the role of Jack Colton, and Debra Winger was chosen as the leading actress, Joan Wilder. Some male actors who were offered the role of Colton were unhappy that Wilder, the female character, was the main character while Colton was a secondary one. After Douglas agreed to star in the film, the original producers (Bigstick Productions) moved the project to Douglas’s company, El Corazon Productions. Douglas then made a deal with 20th Century Fox called a "negative pick-up," which meant his company would fund the film independently, and the studio would buy it once it was completed.

Principal photography on the film began on July 11, 1983. It was filmed in the United States and Mexico. Locations included Veracruz (Fort of San Juan de Ulúa), Huasca de Ocampo, Xalapa, El Arenal, Tonaya, Xico, Barraca Grande, the Valle de Silencio, New York City, and Snow Canyon, Utah. Interior scenes were shot in Mexico City, and the opening scene was filmed in St. George, Utah. The scene where Turner and Douglas are separated on opposite sides of a whitewater river was filmed on the Rio Antigua near Jalcomulco, Veracruz. Production faced delays due to the film’s complex stunts and dangerous weather, though 20th Century Fox pushed the filmmakers to finish quickly to avoid competition with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).

Turner later said, “I remember having many arguments with Robert Zemeckis during filming. He is a film-school graduate who is very interested in cameras and special effects. I never felt he understood how difficult it was for me to adjust my acting to some of his camera setups. Sometimes he would put me in awkward positions. I would say, ‘This is not helping me! This is not how I like to work, thank you!’” After the film was completed, Turner sued the filmmakers to cover the cost of plastic surgery for injuries she suffered during filming. Zemeckis later worked with Turner again, casting her as the voice of Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

Reception

Studio workers believed Romancing the Stone would fail. After seeing an early version of the film, the producers of Cocoon, another movie being made at the time, asked Robert Zemeckis to leave the director role for that film. However, Romancing the Stone became a surprise success and was 20th Century Fox’s biggest hit in 1984. The film earned more than US$115 million worldwide, making it the sixth most successful film of that year. Zemeckis later said that the film’s success helped him create Back to the Future (1985).

The film received mostly positive reviews when it was released. On the website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 56 critics gave it positive ratings, with an average score of 7.2 out of 10. The site’s summary said the film reminded viewers of old adventure serials, with exciting action and good chemistry between the main actors. Metacritic, which calculates scores based on reviews, gave the film a 63 out of 100, meaning most critics found it favorable.

When the film was released, Time magazine called it a copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark but with a female lead. The Washington Post said the story was sometimes exciting but became confusing, and the film’s plot did not clearly support the main character’s development. The magazine also said the main characters lacked romantic chemistry. In contrast, Time Out praised the film’s sharp and funny script and compared it favorably to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Roger Ebert described the film as a fun and exciting adventure, praising its imaginative challenges, colorful villains, and believable relationship between the two main characters. He also compared it positively to other films similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Colin Greenland, writing for Imagine magazine, said the film was funny and lively, similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Filmsite.org listed Romancing the Stone as one of the best films of 1984. Entertainment Weekly included it in a list of films that made 1984 a great year for Hollywood.

Then–U.S. President Ronald Reagan watched the film at Camp David in May 1984.

Awards and Honors:
– Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
– Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy – Kathleen Turner
– Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress – Kathleen Turner
– Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing – ADR
– Stuntman Award for Most Spectacular Stunt – Vince Deadrick Jr., Terry Leonard

• Academy Award for Best Film Editing – Donn Cambern, Frank Morriss
• American Cinema Editors Award for Best Edited Feature Film – Donn Cambern, Frank Morriss
• Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay – Diane Thomas

In other media

The book version of the movie Romancing the Stone was written by Catherine Lanigan using the name "Joan Wilder" as a pen name. She also wrote the book version of the follow-up movie The Jewel of the Nile under the same pen name.

Sequels

The success of Romancing the Stone caused the creation of a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile. Zemeckis did not direct this film, but Douglas, Turner, and DeVito returned for the role. The film was released in December 1985 and did well in theaters, but it received less positive feedback than the first movie.

Since 1985, many attempts have been made to create more sequels. One planned sequel, The Crimson Eagle, would have followed Jack and Joan as they took their two teenage children to Thailand. There, they would be forced to steal a valuable statue. Filming was planned to start in 1987 after Michael Douglas finished work on Wall Street, but the project was delayed and never moved beyond the planning stage. In 1989, DeVito worked with Douglas, Turner, and himself in the film The War of the Roses.

In 2005 and again in 2008, Douglas worked on developing a second sequel, temporarily named Racing the Monsoon.

Since 2007, 20th Century Fox has considered making a new version of Romancing the Stone, possibly as a TV series. The characters Jack Colton and Joan Wilder would be played by Taylor Kitsch (or Gerard Butler) and Katherine Heigl, respectively. By 2011, the remake idea was changed into a television series.