It's a Wonderful Life turned the story and what was worth using from the three scripts into a screenplay that Capra would rename "It's a Wonderful Life". The script underwent many revisions throughout pre-production and during filming. Final screenplay credit went to Goodrich, Hackett, and Capra, with "additional scenes" by Jo Swerling. Capra produced the film with his independent motion picture production company Liberty Films. Dalton Trumbo had written a draft that was different from the final film. In Trumbo's draft, George Bailey is an idealistic politician that slowly grows more cynical as the story progresses, then tries to commit suicide after losing an
A Wonderful Life (musical) and Raposo worked for many years to put together a musical version of "It's a Wonderful Life", but just as the musical's book was completed, a controversy arose over the rights to the underlying Stern story that delayed production of the show. During this delay, Raposo died of cancer in 1989. "A Wonderful Life" was performed initially at the University of Michigan in 1986. The first professional production took place at the Wagon Wheel Playhouse in Warsaw, Indiana, in 1988, followed by a staged reading at the Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, New Jersey, in 1990. It was produced at Washington,