Rees left the project soon after their meeting with Bradbury. Two years passed without a director being selected, and the project was suspended in August 1984 when the production fund ran out. Kurtz would eventually step down in the fall of 1984. He was involved in other projects, so he did not show up at the Nemo project very often, and when he did occasionally, he caused friction with the Japanese staff, so he was removed from the project. However, the staff continued to change rapidly after that. Kondo went to the U.S. in the summer of 1984 to work with Kurtz and Gaskill, but returned home and began making a 70mm pilot film in September. It was a different film from the actual film, based on the storyboards Tomonaga had drawn when Takahata was a director; after completing it in December, Kondo left Telecom in March 1985. Bradbury also dropped out. Osamu Dezaki was also brought to direct for a brief while and completed another pilot film, but left as well. Jean Giraud (Mœbius), who later joined the project, saw the sketches Miyazaki had left behind and asked Fujioka closely why he did not adopt them. He and Miyazaki then began to interact with each other. During the hiatus, Fujioka continued to have many people write manuscripts, including Chris Columbus, Mœbius, John Canemaker, Richard Martini and many others. He then re-hired Summer to do yet another screenplay. Ultimately, Richard Outten wrote the script based on a plot Columbus wrote between May 1985 and May 1986 before making his directorial debut with Adventures in Babysitting. When Lake agreed to an additional investment of 1 billion yen in 1987, Fujioka was the first to cancel his contract with Kurtz, and resume production at the newly established Los Angeles TMS. Fujioka himself became an executive producer and took full control of the project. On the American side, William T. Hurtz was hired at the recommendation of Thomas and Johnston, and on the Japanese side, Masami Hata, who had experience in full animation films at Sanrio, was hired as the director. Many Disney Studio animators including Ken Anderson and Leo Salkin worked on individual sequences, and John Canemaker, Corny Cole, and Brian Froud provided visual development. Frank Thomas, Oliver Johnston and Paul Julian consulted to the production. The world-famous Sherman Brothers (Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman) were hired to write the