According to the retrospective, producer Arnold Kopelson had been attempting to finalize a “Fugitive” film for a protracted, very long time, and had managed to amass 25 totally different drafts in simply the earlier 5 years. Harrison Ford had already been forged as Dr. Kimble, however “The Fugitive” did not but have a script or a director. When Ford noticed Andrew Davis’ “Under Siege” one weekend in 1992, nonetheless, Davis was instantly employed. Davis recalled that his conferences with Kopelson have been nice, however that the script he was handed was, to make use of his phrase, “terrible.” In draft 25, Davis revealed, Gerard was the villain. It appears that the intensive rewrites that led as much as draft 25 drifted fairly a good distance from the supply materials. Davis defined:
“[Gerard had] hired the one-armed man to kill Kimble, after Kimble screwed up an operation on Gerard’s wife. […] It made no sense. But Harrison had committed to the movie, and his viewpoint was: ‘Hey – we’ll fix the script.'”
And repair it they did. Davis instantly ditched the concept that Gerard needs to be the villain, in addition to the notion that Kimble had executed one thing horribly improper to warrant revenge. Indeed, with a heroic actor like Ford within the lead function, Davis felt that Dr. Kimble ought to stay a righteous and harmless character, making the eventual homicide accusation all of the extra stunning. Davis referred to as his sister Josie, a nurse, and she or he urged the theme of the film. Davis recalled:
“I said, ‘Josie, what could a doctor do that would get him in a lot of trouble?’ She talked to some bright young resident at her hospital, who said, ‘What if there’s a dangerous new drug on the market and the doctor says this drug is bulls***?’ So, that became the plot.”
A clever change.