In 1934, MGM did not have a project ready for Gable that he was interested in, paying him $2,000 a week under his contract to do nothing. Studio head Louis B. Mayer lent him to Columbia for $2,500 per week, making a $500 per week profit. Gable was not Capra's first choice to play the lead role of newspaper reporter Peter Warne in the romantic comedy "It Happened One Night" (1934) opposite Claudette Colbert playing a spoiled heiress, but Columbia wanted him and had paid handsomely for it. Robert Montgomery was originally offered the role but said he declined, feeling the script was poor.