The film had its origins with a meeting Paddy Chayefsky had with his friends Bob Fosse and Herb Gardner at the Russian Tea Room in 1975. They were feeling "disgruntled" and as a joke conceived a movie they could make together. They wanted to pitch something to Dino De Laurentiis, who was making "King Kong". After discussing a version of "Frankenstein" they decided to do a version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde". Chayefsky went home and wrote a three-page "dramatic statement and I have never seen something come together so fast."