Mel Brooks was so brazen in its satire that major studios would not touch it, nor would many exhibitors. Brooks finally found an independent distributor who released it as an art film, a specialized attraction. In 1968, Brooks received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film, beating such writers as Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes. "The Producers" became a smash underground hit, first on the nationwide college circuit, then in revivals and on home video. Brooks later turned it into a musical, which became hugely successful on Broadway, receiving an unprecedented twelve Tony awards. With the moderate financial success of
Mel Brooks successful. Brooks then wrote an adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer", but was unable to sell the idea to any studio and believed that his career was over. In 1972, Brooks met agent David Begelman, who helped him set up a deal with Warner Brothers to hire Brooks (as well as Richard Pryor, Andrew Bergman, Norman Steinberg, and Al Uger) as a script doctor for an unproduced script called "Tex-X". Eventually, Brooks was hired as director for what would become "Blazing Saddles", his third film. "Blazing Saddles" starred Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn,