Monty Python's Life of Brian December 1976, with a first draft completed by mid-1977. The final pre-production draft was ready in January 1978, following "a concentrated two-week writing and water-skiing period in Barbados". The film would not have been made without Python fan former Beatle George Harrison, who set up HandMade Films to help fund it at a cost of £3 million. Harrison put up the money for it as he "wanted to see the movie" — later described by Terry Jones as the "world's most expensive cinema ticket." The original backers, EMI Films, had been scared off at the last minute by the subject
Monty Python and the Holy Grail Fifteen months before the BBC visited the set in May 1974, the Monty Python troupe assembled the first version of the screenplay. When half of the resulting material was set in the Middle Ages, and half was set in the present day, the group opted to focus on the Middle Ages, revolving on the legend of the Holy Grail. By the fourth or fifth version of their screenplay, the story was complete, and the cast joked the fact that the Grail was never retrieved would be "a big let-down ... a great anti-climax". Graham Chapman said a challenge was incorporating