tests to Italian leading men, such as Cesare Danova. By June 13, 1957, MGM was still declining to confirm that Wyler had been hired to direct. Yet, production was due to start, the studio said, in March 1958. In fact, despite conducting screen tests and engaging in other pre-production work for Ben-Hur, Wyler did not agree to direct the film until September 1957, and MGM did not announce his hiring until January 3, 1958. Even though he still lacked a leading man, Wyler took the assignment for many reasons: He was promised a base salary of $350,000 as well as 8 percent of the gross box office (or 3 percent of the net profits, whichever was greater), and he wanted to work in Rome again (where he had filmed Roman Holiday). His base salary was, at the time, the largest ever paid to a director for a single film. Professional competitive reasons also played a role in his decision to direct, and Wyler later admitted that he wished to "out DeMille" and make a "thinking man's" Biblical epic. In later years, William Wyler would joke that it took a Jew to make a good film about Christ. Writing Wyler, like Zimbalist, was also unhappy with the script. He felt Tunberg's draft was too much of a morality play overlaid with current Western political overtones, and that the dialogue was too modern-sounding. Zimbalist brought in playwright S. N. Behrman (who also wrote the script for Quo Vadis) and then playwright Maxwell Anderson to write drafts. Behrman spent about a month working on the script, but how much he contributed to the final version is unclear. Both a contemporary account in the British magazine Films and Filmmaking as well as Vidal biographer Fred Kaplan claim that Anderson was ill and unable to work on the script. The New York Times however, reported in June 1957 that Anderson was at work on the script. Vidal said that, by spring 1958, the script largely reflected Anderson and Behrman's work and nearly all the dialogue was in Anderson's "elevated poetic style." Kaplan describes the script at this point as having only a "modest to minimal" understanding of what the ancient Roman world was like, dialogue which veered "between flat Americanisms and stilted formality", and an ill-defined relationship between Judah Ben-Hur and Messala. Vidal biographer Fred Kaplan states that British poet and playwright Christopher Fry was