strongest example of sheer will in film history." After filmmaker John Badham learned that Ross was cast as Dorothy, he decided not to direct, and Cohen replaced him with Sidney Lumet. Of his decision not to direct The Wiz, Badham recalled telling Cohen that he thought Ross was "a wonderful singer. She's a terrific actress and a great dancer, but she's not this character. She's not the little six-year-old girl Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz." Lumet’s hiring was met with skepticism, as he was known as a dramatic filmmaker with no previous musical directing experience. Though 20th Century Fox had financially backed the stage musical, they ended up exercising their first refusal rights to the film production, which gave Universal an opening to finance the film. Initially, Universal was so excited about the film's prospects that they did not set a budget for production. Writing Joel Schumacher's script was influenced by Werner Erhard's teachings and his Erhard Seminars Training ("est") movement, as both Schumacher and Ross were "very enamored of Werner Erhard". "Before I knew it," said Rob Cohen, "the movie was becoming an est-ian fable full of est buzzwords about knowing who you are and sharing and all that. I hated the script a lot. But it was hard to argue with [Ross] because she was recognizing in this script all of this stuff that she had worked out in est seminars." Schumacher spoke positively of the results of the est training, stating that he was "eternally grateful for learning that I was responsible for my life." However, he also complained that "everybody stayed exactly the way they were and went around spouting all this bull shit." Of est and Erhard references in the film itself, The Grove Book of Hollywood notes that the speech delivered by Glinda the Good Witch at the end of the film was "a litany of est-like platitudes", and the book also makes est comparisons to the song "Believe in Yourself". Although Schumacher had seen the Broadway play before writing the script, none of the play's writing was incorporated into the film, a fact that was noted and heavily criticized after release. During production, Lumet felt that the finished film would be "an absolutely unique experience that nobody has ever witnessed before." When asked about any possible influence from MGM's popular 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, Lumet stated that "there