by the original film's screenwriter and actor, Charles B. Griffith. John Landis was also attached to the project for a time. Music producer and Four Seasons member Bob Gaudio adapted and produced the musical's songs for the film. Geffen then offered the film to Frank Oz, who was finishing work on The Muppets Take Manhattan around the same time. Oz initially rejected it, but later had an idea that interested him in the cinematic aspect of the project. Oz spent a month and a half restructuring the script which he felt was stage-bound. Geffen and Ashman liked what he had written and decided to run with it. Oz was also studying the Off-Broadway show and how it was thematically constructed, in order to reconstruct it for a feature film. The film differs only slightly from the stage play. The title song is expanded to include an additional verse to allow for the opening credits. The song "Ya Never Know" was rewritten into a calypso-inspired song called "Some Fun Now", although some of the lyrics were retained. Four other songs ("Closed for Renovation", "Mushnik and Son", "Now [It's Just the Gas]", as well as "Call Back in the Morning") were cut from the original production score, and "Finale (Don't Feed the Plants)" does not appear in the theatrical version of the film. A new song, "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space", was written by Ashman and Menken for the film. Casting Greene was not the first choice for the role of Audrey. The studio wanted Cyndi Lauper, who turned it down. Barbra Streisand was also rumored to have been offered the part. Since Greene was the original off-Broadway Audrey, the role was given to her. "She's amazing," Oz said. "I couldn't imagine any other Audrey, really. She nailed that part for years off-Broadway." The character of the masochistic dental patient (who in Corman's original film was named Wilbur Force and played by Jack Nicholson) was cut from the stage version but added back to the new film, renamed Arthur Denton, and played by Bill Murray, who improvised all of his dialogue. It supposedly took Steve Martin six weeks to film all his scenes as Orin. He contributed ideas such as socking the nurse in the face (originally he was to knock her out using his motorbike helmet) and ripping off the doll head. Filming All the scenes were filmed at Pinewood