He bought the rights and assigned Lorenzo Semple Jr, who had written "King Kong", to do the script. It was part of a slate of seven films the producer would make worth $80 million (the others being "Stormy Women", "King of the Gypsies", "The First Great Train Robbery", "The Brink's Job", "Flash Gordon" and "Ragtime"). "The Hurricane" had a budget of $15 million and it was to be distributed by Paramount. The bulk of finance of "Hurricane" came from Dutch company Famous Films.