Oscar bait success of summer blockbusters like "Jaws" and "Star Wars" (both of which had also been nominated for Best Picture), independent filmmakers refined Carr's methods of exploiting the Oscars. Merchant Ivory, who produced lavish costume dramas, often based on novels by Henry James or E. M. Forster, began to time their releases to align with the awards season. Their 1985 adaptation of Forster's "A Room with a View" won three of the eight Oscars it was nominated for. By 1991 the modern film-release calendar, in which studios released the movies they had the highest Oscar hopes for in autumn and December,
John O'Farrell (author) in August 2018 that the same team had been commissioned to write a musical of Mrs. Doubtfire for Broadway. In 1998, O'Farrell published "Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter". The book became a number-one best-seller, and was nominated for the George Orwell Award and the Channel 4 Political Awards. The popularity of the book led O'Farrell to be invited to address the 1999 Labour Party conference. The memoir was adapted for BBC Radio 4 starring Jack Dee and Doon Mackichan. In September 2010, it was listed by "The Economist" as Britain's