20 Things You Didn't Know About Raiders Of The Lost Ark
4. The Film Was Rejected Repeatedly
At first, Raiders was going to have a small budget. As the directors kept adding in exotic locations and overelaborate stunts, the budget escalated to $18 million. That may sound dirt-cheap by todays standards that but that was a staggering amount at the time. By comparison, Star Wars cost $11 million.
Due to ballooning budget and dangerous fight scenes, Raiders was rejected by almost every major film studio. You might think this is a bit odd since Spielberg's Jaws was the first film to make $100 million and Lucas' Star Wars became the powerful franchise in cinema. Surely, this film was going to be successful, right?
Of course. It grossed $390 million at the box office, making the most successful film of the year. So why weren't any studios interested? Because Lucas made the same deal he made for Star Wars; he would get all merchandise and have total control over potential sequels. Lucas only got away with this deal with Star Wars because no one could have anticipate the film's success. Now that studios were wary of Lucas' ways, they rejected Raiders unless Lucas cut a more reasonable deal.
After being met with rejection many times, Paramount finally green-lit the production.