When Michael Douglas was promoting his film ROMANCING THE STONE, he was asked about the comparisons with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, merely telling people that he hadn’t seen the prequel released the same year, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.
He did, however, point out a couple of other facts:
(1) ROMANCING THE STONE was written in 1979 by the late scriptwriter Diane Thomas, two years before RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK bowed in cinemas as the top US hit of 1981.
(2) ROMANCING THE STONE came out two months before INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.
It does beg the question – which is the more original script?
Regardless of what your answer is, it is undeniable that ROMANCING THE STONE became one of the deserved critical and commercial successes of 1984, with director Robert Zemeckis at the helm and Michael Douglas making his third foray into producing after the Oscar-winning ONE FLEW OVEE THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975) – one of three films in history to win the ‘Big Five’ Oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Adapted Screenplay) – the others being IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1990) . He also produced THE CHINA SYNDROME (1979), co-starring opposite Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon in a film about a nuclear power plant meltdown that had the seeming serendipity to get successful three weeks into the release due to the real-life Three Mile Island power plant meltdown.
Kathleen Turner is adventure novelist Joan Wilder, whose best-known character Angelina forms the basis of all her stories. However, her sister Elaine is struggling due to the murder of her husband Eduardo in Colombia and has sent Joan a package.
When she comes home to find her place burgled, she gets a phone call from Elaine who has been taken hostage who tells her to bring a map which she sent to her.
Upon arrival in Colombia, she gets on the wrong bus and is cornered in the wilderness by Colonel Zolo (Manuel Ojeda), saved in the nick of time by Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), with whom Joan persuades him to take her to Cartagena on the coast to deliver the map. However, Jack realises that it might be more constructive and productive to go after what is at the end of the map.
Meanwhile two cousins, Ralph (Danny DeVito) and Ira (Zack Norman), who are Elaine’s captors, are determined to get hold of the map as well, with Zolo also in hot pursuit…
It’s just unfortunate timing that the film did come out with RAIDERS firmly established as a blockbuster hit and potential new franchise in the works (four films were announced in 1980 when the first film was still in production, with a fifth on the way dependent on the current situation).
However, the film does have a more mature audience in mind although it has much to appeal to teens and kids who may watch this with their parents and older siblings.
Writer Thomas sadly died in a car accident shortly after the release of ROMANCING THE STONE and got a posthumous writing credit on Steven Spielberg’s 1990 offering ALWAYS with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter and John Goodman.