Bradbury wrote the original short story in 1948 and in 1957 (reportedly after seeing Singin' in the Rain some 40 times), Bradbury adapted it into a 70-page screen treatment and presented it as a gift to Gene Kelly. Clayton evidently met Bradbury around 1959 and expressed interest in directing the film but Kelly was unable to raise the money to produce it. Bradbury subsequently expanded the treatment into the novel version of the story, which was published in 1962. According to a 1983 New York Times interview with Bradbury, he and Clayton reconnected and revived the project thanks to a pair of coincidental meetings. In 1969, while walking through Beverly Hills, Bradbury met Peter Douglas (the son of actor Kirk Douglas), who was hoping to become a movie producer; he asked Bradbury if he had any suitable screenplays and Bradbury suggested Something Wicked. Coincidentally, Clayton was having lunch with Kirk Douglas on the very same day, and when Douglas asked the director about films he might like to make, Clayton also mentioned Something Wicked This Way Comes. Peter and Kirk Douglas then optioned the rights to the book and Bradbury spent five months editing his unwieldy 240-page script to a more feasible 120 pages. The script was approved for production by Paramount but at this point it fell foul of the power struggle between Paramount head of production, David Picker and the studio's new president Barry Diller. According to Bradbury's account, Picker loved the script, but Diller "hated anything Picker loved" so he ordered the production to be shut down. Clayton later admitted that he was so enraged by Diller's decision that he put his fist through a Paramount office window. In the early 1980s, after Clayton had recovered from his stroke, Peter Douglas was able to sell the project to the Disney studios, with Clayton again signed to direct. Unfortunately, the film was fraught with problems throughout its production. Clayton and Bradbury reportedly fell out after the director brought in British writer John Mortimer for an uncredited rewrite of the screenplay. Clayton made the film as a dark thriller, which saw him to return to themes he had explored in earlier films – the supernatural and the exposure of children to evil. When he submitted his original cut, the studio expressed strong reservations about its length and pacing, its commercial potential and Disney took the unusual step of holding