Hackford said that "the final version was absolute magic—or at least Joel and I thought so." They now had to present this song that they weren't budgeted to make to the executives at Paramount. "When we played it for Michael Eisner and Don Simpson, they hated the record and said it would never be a hit." Simpson even bet Sill $100 that it wouldn't be. Hackford and Sill "called another prominent record executive, who said, 'Forget it. Jennifer Warnes has never had a hit song and Joe Cocker's a has-been. Eisner and Simpson made Hackford "meet with various recording artist friends of theirs who tried to write songs, but their title songs didn't fit the movie." Hackford said, "Finally, one of the famous artists who was involved looked at the movie and said, to his credit, 'Hey, I can write something, but it's not going to work as well as the song you've got. Because they were running out of time before the film's release, Eisner and Simpson finally gave in, and "Up Where We Belong" made the final cut of the film and was released as a single on July 22, 1982.