This had an effect on him and eventually influenced how he made Body Heat. It was obvious that there was little confidence in Kasdan’s abilities. George Lucas secretly signed on as guarantor, offering to pay a fee if Kasdan went over budget. They reached an agreement that if Kasdan were to fail he would immediately be replaced by a more experienced director. Ladd was still interested in taking on Body Heat but felt that having a first-time director on the project would be a gamble. According to the AFI, Fox dropped the project when a disagreement on casting couldn’t be resolved. When Ladd left the studio to start The Ladd Company, Kasdan’s script languished at Fox. He presented his idea for Body Heat to Alan Ladd Jr., the head of 20th Century-Fox, who was interested in the project and put in on the books. Kasdan took inspiration from his favorite filmmakers, John Sturges and Akira Kurosawa, as well as his favorite classic movies to update those styles of filmmaking with a fresh perspective. Lawrence Kasdan’s screenwriting career was on the rise thanks to his collaborations with George Lucas on two of the original Star Wars movies and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Matty Walker, played by Kathleen Turner, is the object of his obsession and lures him into a plot to murder her investor husband Edmund (Richard Crenna). William Hurt plays Ned Racine, a sleazy lawyer whose lust for a married woman lands him in hot water. In Kasdan’s original screenplay, that premise takes on a whole new life with two new unsympathetic protagonists, a Florida setting and an unrelenting heatwave. The basic premise of a femme fatale and her lover plot to murder her wealthy husband was modelled from the noir Double Indemnity (1944). Inspired by Kasdan’s love of film noir, specifically movies like The Big Sleep (1946), Out of the Past (1947) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Body Heat pays homage to the film noir style while boosting its sex appeal for a contemporary audience. An atmospheric and steamy neo-noir, Body Heat (1981) is an impressive feature directorial debut by Lawrence Kasdan.

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