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,
Mrs. Doubtfire Alan Menken, lyrics by David Zippel, and a book by Harvey Fierstein. Producer Kevin McCollum had previously spoken to the New York Times in 2013 about the 1993 movie's musical prospects, noting that the plot was 'tailored for Broadway audiences'. However, in 2016, Menken told Digital Spy that the project was put on 'creative hiatus', citing changes in the creative team as the problem. Nevertheless, in 2018 McCollum revealed that the adaptation was still aiming for a Broadway bow, but with an entirely different creative team which includes Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick composing the score, and John O'Farrell and Karey