Mankiewicz was unhappy at Warner Bros and he decided to move over to Universal. "The last thing I wanted to do was make another deal that cast me as a fixer", he said. "And Frank Price, who was then running production, agreed totally. So after two weeks here, Frank asked me to do a rewrite on the "Dragnet" script!" Things worked out well for Mankiewicz, who got along well with co-writers Dan Aykroyd and Alan Zweibel and wound up directing "Dragnet". It was one of the top grossers of 1987, and marked his feature debut as director.