Gone with the Wind (film) time on the night of December 10, 1938, when the burning of Atlanta was filmed. In a letter to his wife two days later, Selznick admitted that Leigh was "the Scarlett dark horse", and after a series of screen tests, her casting was announced on January 13, 1939. Just before the shooting of the film, Selznick informed newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan: "Scarlett O'Hara's parents were French and Irish. Identically, Miss Leigh's parents are French and Irish." Of original screenplay writer Sidney Howard, film historian Joanne Yeck writes, "reducing the intricacies of "Gone with the Wind"'s epic dimensions was a herculean
Gone with the Wind (film) their distributors. A further re-release in 1971 allowed it to briefly recapture the record from "The Sound of Music", bringing its total worldwide gross rental to about $116 million by the end of 1971—more than trebling its earnings from its initial release—before losing the record again the following year to "The Godfather". Across all releases, it is estimated that "Gone with the Wind" has sold over 200 million tickets in the United States and Canada, generating more theater admissions in that territory than any other film. The film was phenomenally successful in Western Europe too, generating approximately 35 million tickets