Hollywood Tales
“Steven [Spielberg] had purchased my script Continental Divide, which was very different from the film which resulted. The script had a kind of Hawksian speed, momentum, hopefully with about it. I don’t think the film turned out that way, which was one of those painful experiences I had early on. But Steven’s enthusiasm for it was what got me involved with him and George [Lucas]. I think that what they were looking for was someone who could write Raiders in the same way that [Howard] Hawks would have someone write a movie for him — a strong woman character, a certain kind of hero. So that’s what got me the job. George had already had the idea of the way the guy dressed, and Phil Kaufman had provided the Macguffin of the Lost Ark of the Covenant, which his orthodontist had told him about when he was eleven years old. At one time Phil was going to direct it, but he had gone on to different things. George had told the idea to Steven, and Steven had said, ‘Oh, that excites me.’ When I was brought in, it became a Lucas-Spielberg-Kasdan movie. We sat down and decided on the kind of hero Indiana Jones would be, his name, his whip, and talked about the Macguffin and serial films. After that, we created the film by jumping through favorite moments from those kinds of films [serials] — the sort of thing we would like to see.”
— Larry Kasdan on how he became involved as the screenwriter for Raiders of the Lost Ark