Producer Martin Bregman bought the rights to "The Shadow" in 1982. Robert Zemeckis had been involved with a film adaptation in the 1980s, while Sam Raimi's pitch was ignored. Universal allowed Raimi to develop an original treatment inspired by The Shadow in 1987 with the development of "Darkman". David Koepp had listened to the radio serial of "The Shadow" as a child, when CBS re-ran it on Sunday nights. Koepp was hired in 1990 to write a new draft, and was able to find the right tone that the studio liked. Bregman remembers, 'Some of them were light, some of them were darker, and others were supposedly funnier – which they weren't. It just didn’t work.' Koepp's script relied predominantly on the pulp novels while taking the overall tone from the radio show, with the actual plot originated by Koepp himself in consultation with Bregman.