Jerry Belson wrote The End in 1971, but the film spent roughly five years in development after Columbia Pictures passed it around and producer Lawrence Gordon held onto the screenplay. The subject matter—a fundamentally comic story about a man trying repeatedly to commit suicide after receiving a fatal diagnosis—made the project a dangerous proposition for Hollywood financiers. Burt Reynolds eventually became attached, but the studio still treated the film as a concession to its biggest star rather than a project it genuinely wanted to support. Reynolds later recalled that he was permitted to make The End only on the condition that he first deliver Hooper, the stuntman action comedy that became a major Warner Bros. hit and effectively paid for the riskier production.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
Burt Reynolds Had to Deliver Hooper Before United Artists Would Let Him Make The End
Burt Reynolds and The End / 1970s
Jerry Belson wrote The End in 1971, but the film spent roughly five years in development after Columbia Pictures passed it around and producer Lawrence Gordon held onto the screenplay. The subject matter—a fundamentally comic story about a man trying repeatedly to commit suicide after receiving a fatal diagnosis—made the project a dangerous proposition for Hollywood financiers. Burt Reynolds eventually became attached, but the studio still treated the film as a concession to its biggest star rather than a project it genuinely wanted to support. Reynolds later recalled that he was permitted to make The End only on the condition that he first deliver Hooper, the stuntman action comedy that became a major Warner Bros. hit and effectively paid for the riskier production.
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