Be the Day even before the latter film was released, and they went on holiday to Italy to plan it. "This time we knew we were going to make a film about rock," wrote Connolly. "It was the story of young Britain in the Sixties." Puttnam wanted to set the story in the early sixties while Connolly wanted it to go until the seventies. They compromised and the story encompassed the whole sixties. The film originally had the title of Sooner or Later. That'll Be the Day was directed by Claude Whatham but he and Puttnam clashed during filming so it was decided to get a new director. The film was offered to Alan Parker who had worked with Puttnam in advertising but Parker decided to make The Evacuees instead. The job went to Michael Apted who had been the first choice to direct That'll Be the Day and had recently begun work in features with Triple Echo. Apted said Stardust is "about the media, success, drugs, isolation, and a lot of other things... We merely put up the idea that pop heroes are often created by other people, not themselves, and the whole awful business is usually deceiving and self destructive." Finance came from Nat Cohen of EMI Films, who had helped finance the original, and Columbia Pictures. Casting David Essex, Rosalind Ayres, and Keith Moon all reprised their roles from That'll Be the Day. After making That'll Be the Day Essex had become a pop star himself with the record Rock On. Connolly wrote that the role of the band's American manager was originally written as an Italian-American from the Bronx with Tony Curtis in mind, but when Curtis proved too expensive, native Texan Larry Hagman was cast and the part was rewritten as a Texan. Hagman credited his work in Stardust with helping him develop his later character of oil baron J.R. Ewing on the TV series Dallas. According to Connolly, Adam Faith was cast after Ringo Starr, who had played "Mike" in That'll Be the Day, declined to appear in the sequel because "having lived through the experience in reality as a member of the Beatles he wasn't keen to revisit it." Michael Brooks wrote that Starr declined because of "an uncomfortable resemblance between a key subplot and the real-life story of Pete Best's departure from the Beatles." Filming Filming began on 18 February 1974. Location