Before a deal was put together in 1998, Oja Kodar screened Gary Graver's rough cut of the film for a number of famous directors in the 1980s and 1990s, seeking their help in completing the film, but they all turned it down for various reasons. These included John Huston (who was by then terminally ill with emphysema and was unable to breathe without oxygen tubes), Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Clint Eastwood and George Lucas. Lucas reportedly claimed to be baffled by the footage, saying he didn't know what to do with it, and that it was too avant-garde for a commercial audience. Kodar subsequently accused both Eastwood and Stone of plagiarism from the film, citing Eastwood's performance in "White Hunter Black Heart" (1990) as a copy of John Huston's, including one line of dialogue ("I'm Marvin P. Fassbender." "Of course you are."), and Stone's adoption of the film's distinctive rapidly cut editing and camera style for his "JFK" (1991), "Nixon" (1995) and "Natural Born Killers" (1994).