Lindsay Doran film. Doran explained, "For 10 years I'd been trying to find somebody I thought could adapt it. Usually romantics are too optimistic and dreamy to see Austen's cynicism, and satirists are too cynical to believe in romance." Thompson fit Doran's criteria for a good screenwriter, despite the actress never having written a screenplay before. The resulting production of "Sense and Sensibility" earned Thompson an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, making her the only person to have won an Oscar for both her writing and acting (Thompson won the Best Actress award for "Howards End", in 1993). Along with producing,
Sense and Sensibility (film) earned $721,341. To benefit from the publicity surrounding potential Academy Award candidates and increase its chance of earning nominations, the film was released within "Oscar season". The number of theatres showing "Sense and Sensibility" was slowly expanded, with particular surges when its seven Oscar nominations were announced and at the time of the ceremony in late March, until it was present in over one thousand cinemas across the US. By the end of its American release, "Sense and Sensibility" had been watched by more than eight million people, garnering an "impressive" total domestic gross of $43,182,776. On the basis of